John Snodsmith  


JOHN SNODSMITH
Industrious, enterprising and progressive, and possessing the energy and 
ability that ever commands success in life, John Snodsmith is prominently 
associated with the advancement of the financial interests of Jefferson 
county, being cashier of the Belle Rive Banking Company, of Belle Rive, 
which was organized in June, 1910, by local and Mount Vernon capitalists, 
in connection with the Third National Bank of Mount Vernon. This company 
is capitalized at twelve thousand dollars, of which five thousand eight 
hundred dollars is paid in, and gives four per cent interests on time 
deposits, while its individual liabilities amount to a million dollars. 
Its officers are all men of ability and integrity, being as follows: 
President, F. E. Patton, of Mount Vernon; vice-president, A. Knowles, 
of Belle Rive; cashier, John Snodsmith, of Belle Rive; while its 
directors are F. E. Patton, George A. Cross, L. L. Emmerson, R. B. Kern, 
Kirby Smith. A. Knowles, W. F. Carpenter, E. B. O. Dayton, T. J. DeWill, 
George H. Batka and Henry Puckett. John Snodsmith was born on a farm in 
Morris Prairie township, Jefferson county, Illinois, September 28, 1866, 
of German ancestry. His father, John Snodsmith, Sr., a native of Germany, 
immigrated to this country when very young, and after living in Saint Louis, 
Missouri, located on a farm in Jefferson county, Illinois. Energetic and 
thrifty, he succeeded in his agricultural labors, and at the time of his 
death, in 1885, owned a whole section of land, six hundred and forty acres. 
During the Civil war he served his adopted country as a soldier, enlisting 
in Company E, Thirty-first Regiment of Volunteer Infantry, in which he served 
nine months and six days. He married, in Saint Louis, Missouri, Eliza Thoensing, 
a native of Germany, and of their seven children two died in infancy, and the 
five that grew to years of maturity are as follows: Mrs. Carrie Maxey, a widow, 
living in Mount Vernon; Henry H., a farmer; Adolphus, also a farmer; Charles 
Augustus, deceased; and John, of this sketch. Brought up on the home farm John 
Snodsmith attended the rural schools of his district, after which he completed 
a course in bookkeeping in Lexington, Kentucky, later continuing his studies at 
both the Ewing College and the Valparaiso College. Fitted for a professional 
career, Mr. Snodsmith taught school five terms in Jefferson county, commencing 
when he was twenty years old. He has since followed farming most successfully, 
and in addition to owning one hundred and thirty acres of the parental homestead, 
having purchased in the summer of 1911 a farm of seventy-six acres in Morris 
Prairie township. He is now devoting his energies to his duties as cashier of 
the Belle Rive Banking Company, a position for which he is eminently qualified, 
and which he is filling most acceptably to all concerned. Taking an active 
interest in political affairs, Mr. Snodsmith is an ardent supporter of the 
principles of the Democratic party. He served as assessor of Morris Prairie 
township three terms, and for one term was school trustee. Fraternally he is a 
member of Belle Rive Lodge, No. 992, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and 
religiously he is a member of the Missionary Baptist church. Mr. Snodsmith 
married, in 1891, Ollie Jane Smith, daughter of Benjamin Smith, of Spring 
Garden township, Jefferson county, and they have one child, Juanita Jean, 
born October 7, 1897.





Source: History of Southern Illinois George Washington Smith, 
M. A. VOLUME I - III ILLUSTRATED 
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY CHICAGO AND NEW YORK 1912
Page 1529 - 1530


Submitted by Robert W. Loman * rwlmn@aol.com