Clemon Hastings Snow (1848-1918) – 52 Ancestors # 49 Winter

Although it isn’t officially winter yet, here in the Northeast of the United States it has been cold enough and dark enough to feel like winter already.  Plus, I have one family line carrying the last name Snow, which is a pretty wintry name.  I have written about other Snow ancestors (here and here) but not my great grandfather Clemon Hastings Snow.  So here is a short summary of what I know about him at this point.

Clemon was born 22 Sep 1848 in Avon, Lorain, Ohio to Julia Lewis and Edwin Snow.  He was their third and last son but had two younger sisters, so was a middle child.  A biographical sketch from 1894¹ noted that his early education was in the local schools but as a young man he attended Oberlin College, first in the prep course and then in the college course.   After Oberlin he went to Cleveland and spent a year learning civil engineering work.  Once finished there he returned to Avon and spent a number of years farming as his father did, although he also pursued his profession when there was work.  In 1886 he was appointed county surveyor for Lorain County and then was elected to the position.  And from 1887 he also served as the civil engineer for the city of Elyria.

Clemon married Mary M. Sweet in May 1880.  She came from a farm family in the same township and county as Clemon and they likely knew each other from church, school, and social activities.  Clemon and Mary were enumerated a month later in the federal census as a household of just the two of them, so presumably Clemon had a house to bring his new wife to.  Their son, Franklin C. was born in Avon in 1882.  My guess is that the young family moved into Elyria before Franklin started school, since Clemon was made the civil engineer for the city in 1887 when Franklin was only 4-5.  There were around 5000 people living in Elyria at this point, and there were multiple churches, stores, mills, and at least one newspaper.  Even then, Elyria was seen as close to Cleveland, and by the 1890s or early 1900s it could serve as a bedroom community for men who commuted into Cleveland for work (and Elyria had grown to 8000).  Elyria was the county seat of Lorain county, so the courthouse was there.  It was also the home of the Lorain County Fair every year which must have been a time of socializing and maybe competing for prizes.

Clemon, or C.H. as he often appeared in records and newspaper reports, was involved in town offices aside from his engineering work.  He served on the Board of Education for some time.  As noted in his biography, the Snow family attended the Methodist Episcopal Church.

There are two mysteries about Clemon.  The first is where his middle name of Hastings originated.  In my database there is a Hastings Snow who was a great uncle of Clemon’s, born in 1780.  The Hastings name has also been passed down several times more recently in the Snow-Denman family line.  I don’t see Hastings any earlier than this 1780 birth, although I haven’t tracked the Wadsworth grandparent line back.  The possibilities include one of the families having come from Hastings, England originally, or that there was either a famous person of that name or a more local personage.

The second mystery is what he died of.  Since he died in 1918 in Ohio, his death certificate is digitized and available on familysearch.org and I have a copy.  As can be seen, the physician who signed the certificate had not seen him alive (must have been called in at the time of his death) and the cause of death was said to be ” acute Indigestion (?)”  The physician was asked officially to report any other information about the cause of the indigestion but he reported not knowing what the cause was.

*****************************************************************