Abraham "Abe" Snyder and Mildred Catherine Harrington were married on
June 30, 1925 at the rectory of St. Basil's Church in Dushore, Sullivan County, PA. Their marriage
brought together one of the most successful entrepreneurial families in the area, the Harringtons, and
an old German farming family from Pillow, Dauphin County, PA, near the state capital of
Harrisburg. See the marriage certificate below. Due to the gracious time and energy of Frank and Annie Snyder, son and granddaughter, respectively,
of Abe and Mildred, we now present a history in pictures of these related families. Beginning in 2009, Frank and Annie donated their collection
of historical papers and photographs to the Sullivan County Historical Society and Museum, via Bob Sweeney, who first examined, scanned and conserved
the documents. Shown just below is a photo of father and daughter taken on Frank's 89th birthday, March 28, 2015. We also
thank Eric Snyder, a remote cousin with an intense interest in
Snyder family history for helping pull together the deeper roots of the Snyder family. Please direct any
comments, or suggestions, to either of these parties or to Bob Sweeney, the Sullivan County Genealogical Web
Page coordinator.
Editor's Note: Captain Frank M. Snyder died in Newport, Rhode Island in
October, 2017. Here is his Obituary and that of his wife Margaret M. (Kelly) Snyder:
Frank M. Snyder
Margaret M.(Kelly) Snyder
Frank M. and Anne Snyder
Our Contributors
Newport, RI
Taken on Frank's 89th Birthday
March 28, 2015
Photo Contributed by Annie Snyder, Frank's Daughter
Abraham Frank Snyder and Mildred Catherine Harrington
Marriage Certificate
Service Conducted by Rev. Michael F. Sweeny *
June 30, 1925
Photo Contributed by Frank Snyder
* Note: Father Sweeny spelled his name without a third "e", so there is a typo in the
certificate.
The "deep" history of the Snyder family, and how it relates to the Snyders of Sullivan County, has been captured
by Eric Snyder as follows:
There was a Jacob Schneider in the Revolutionary War who was born
about 1749/1750 and died in October of 1837. Jacob had several children including:
Johannes(John), Jacob Jr., Henrich(Henry), Benjamin, Solomon and Daniel. His Revolutionary War documents indicate
two lines of descent, such that Annie and the Sullivan County Snyders descend from Benjamin while I [Eric] come down
from Jacob, Jr. Here is how the descent lines would look:
Jacob Schneider- Rev War b. 1749, d 1837 - Schuylkill County PA
...Jacob Schneider, Jr. - b. 1781, d. 1850
......Benjamin Snyder - b. 1827, d. 1899
.........Jefferson Snyder - b. 1853, d 1916
............Robert W. Snyder - b. 1887, .d 1972
...............Roy Jefferson Snyder - b. 1907, d. 1969
..................Richard H. Snyder - b. 1933, d. 2004
.....................Eric M. Snyder - b. 1963
...Benjamin Schneider - born in 1789 in Berks County, d. ???
......John Abraham Schneider - born Jan 07, 1814 in Schuykill County, PA, d. June 21, 1888, buried in Berrysburg, Dauphin County, PA
.........Franklin Milton Snyder - b. May 16, 1858 in Pillow, Dauphin County, PA, d Dec. 06, 1920 in Pillow, PA*
............Abraham Frank "Abe" Snyder, b. 1896, d. 1994 in Towanda, PA, buried St. Basil's Cemetery, Dushore, PA
...............Frank Snyder
..................Anne "Annie" Snyder
* Note: Frank Snyder reports that his name as recorded on his tombstone in
Pillow, PA was "Frank", which of course, could be what he went by, even if his birth name were "Franklin". Here, also,
courtesy of Eric Snyder, are the death notice for Franklin Snyder and the obituary for Abraham Frank Snyder:
Lykens Standard
Lykens, PA
December 8-9, 1920
Deaths.
SNYDER.--Dec. 6th, at his residence in Pillow, FRANK SNYDER, aged 62 years. Services at Lutheran Church, Pillow,
Saturday morning at 10 o'clock. Relatives and friends are invited. Burial in Grand View Cemetery, Pillow.
Sun-Gazette
Williamsport, PA
Sunday, November 13, 1994
Deaths and Funerals.
Abraham Frank Snyder.
Dushore.--Abraham Frank Snyder, 98, of Dushore, died Friday, Nov. 11 at the Skilled Nursing Unit of the Memorial Hospital.
He was active in local organizations including the Dushore and Sullivan County school boards; a board member and officer at the council and district levels in the Boy Scouts for which he received the Silver Beaver Award and the National Silver Antelope Award; the Dushore Fire Co. for 59 years; a charter member of the Dushore Lions for 52 years; the Sullivan County Chamber of Commerce, and the Evergreen Lodge, F&AM, for 72 years.
Following his retirement in 1961, he became with more local activities, including serving as Civil Defense director for Sullivan County since 1941; a board member of both Robert Packer and Towanda Memorial hospitals and president of the Towanda Hospital for eight years. He was also a director of Northern Central Bank for 30 years, a director of Commonwealth Telephone Company, and a trustee of Mansfield State College.
He was a member of Zion Chapel, Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in Dushore and was a former council member and officer.
In June of 1925, he married the former Mildred Harrington of Dushore.
In September of 1925, he enrolled in a 16-week dairy course at Cornell University and, upon his return to Dushore, he joined Harrington and Company, where he became treasurer as well as manager of milk and ice cream operations in Dushore until his retirmed 36 years later. He continued as manager through several subsequent changes of ownership from Harrington and Co. to Philadelphia Dairy Co., to Foremost Dairies.
He was graduated from the Pillow School in 1914 and taught school for two years in one-room schoolhouses near Pillow. Unable to join the military because of an injury to his foot, he enrolled in the Pennsylvania State Forest Academy, now a Penn State University campus, at Mt. Alto. He was valedictorian of his class and graduated in 1920 with a degree in forestry.
After several months as an assistant forester, he was assigned as district forester for the Wyoming District, which then consisted essentially of Bradford and Sullivan Counties. In 1921, he took up his post in Dushore, where he had lived ever since.
During the four years he was district forester, he negotiated the purchase of forest land for the state, organized the construction of six fire towers, and also organized firefighters dealing with a number of forest fires, one of which lasted for several days.
Born Oct. 27, 1896 at Pillow, he was a son of Frank and Mary Lenker Snyder.
Surviving are a son Frank of Portsmouth, R. I., a daughter Mary Margaret Donahue of Cinnamonsin, N. J., four grandchildren and several nieces and nephews.
He was predeceased by his wife Mildred in 1984 and a son Jim, who died in an automobile accident in 1957, and by brothers Ray, Tom, James and Charles and sisters Helen Diebler, Ella Fauber and Margaret Snyder.
The funeral will be at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday at Homer's, 206 Water Street, Dushore, followed by services at the church with the Rev. Joseph B. Cotner, his pastor, officiating. Interment will follow in St. Basil's Cemetery.
Friends may call at the funeral home from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. Monday.
Note: This lineage seems to make Anne a fifth cousin of Eric's father. Wow! In early 2010, Jonathan
Snyder created Descendants of John Abraham Schneider, a
genealogy of that branch of the Snyder family going back five generations and capturing all of Annie's ancestral Snyder relatives back to 1814. Jonathan Snyder comes down as follows:
1. Jacob Schneider
2. Henrich Schneider [brother of Jacob, Jr. and Benjamin, the protagonists of the lineages of Eric and Annie Snyder]
3. John Henry Snyder
4. William Denham Snyder
5. William Martin Snyder
6. Marvin Ellsworth Snyder
7. Marvin Ellsworth Snyder, Jr.
8. Jonathan Dale Snyder.
You can learn more than you might ever want to know about the Schneider/Snyder family from Dauphin County and
their origins at
The Snyder Line, which was created by Richard
Alan Lebo. Here is the tombstone of
Abraham Schneider, Annie's gr-gr-grandfather, in the Methodist Cemetery in Berrysburg, Dauphin County,
PA, where the family seems to have resided for several generations:
Abraham Snyder ["Schneider"]
1814-1888
Grave Marker, Methodist
Cemetery, Berrysburg, PA
Photo Contributed by Eric Snyder
Here is what Annie had to say at the time she contacted Bob Sweeney to arrange for her historical collection to
be examined:
I am the granddaughter of Abraham and Mildred (Harrington) Snyder of Dushore. My grandmother (Mildred) was
my great-uncle Maurice Harrington's sister. My father is Frank M. Snyder, their eldest son. They also had a son, Jim,
who was killed in 1957, and a daughter, Mary Margaret. My grandmother's family (Harringtons)
lived in the house at 125 Churchill St. in Dushore, for over 100 years, until my grandfather Abe died in 1994. My
grandmother's father started the Harrington Dairy.
My grandparents
saved everything and when my grandfather died, I took a lot of their stuff with me for memories and safekeeping. Upon
looking over your website, I think that you might be interested in a lot of the material that we have. This compendium consists
of tons of old pictures--Dushore, the Dairy, trains, etc., from 1900-1950's. There are lots of old St. Basil's
memorabilia, including the program from the Centennial celebration in 1971 and old pictures of other miscellaneous
celebrations at St. Basil's from the 1930's.
My grandfather Snyder developed the numbering scheme for the houses in Dushore. I have all his records and
notes from that project. We have what I believe are the naturalization papers from my Harrington ancestor,
Joseph Litzelswope. We have many old pictures of St. Basil's and St. Basil's graduating classes. There is a
signed and gold seal stamped copy of the Peter Armstrong/Celestia deed/indenture. As I mentioned, there are many
old Harrington Dairy memorabilia/pictures.
My grandfather had an actual official "day" named for him in the state of Pennsylvania and we have
the documentation from that and the program from that day. Doc Shoemaker, the local historian and publisher of
The Sullivan Review, made one of the presentations to him. This is just a sample.
Here is a picture of the Abraham F. Snyder family taken in the late 1940s:
Abraham F. and Mildred (Harrington) Family
Children, l to r: James H., Mary Margaret and Frank M.
Late 1940s
Photo Contributed by Frank Snyder
Here is a picture of Mary Margaret and James H. Snyder, siblings of Frank Snyder, taken in Dushore in 1956:
Mary Margaret and James H. Snyder
Brother and Sister
Dushore 1956
Photo Contributed by Frank Snyder
Now, let's meet Mildred (Harrington) Snyder, Abe Snyder's wife, Frank Snyder's mother, and Annie's grandmother:
Mildred (Harrington) Snyder
1896-1984
In the Early 1920s
Photo Contributed by Frank Snyder
Mildred (Harrington) Snyder and James H. Snyder
Mother and Son
At 125 Churchill Street, Dushore, PA
1933
Photo Contributed by Frank Snyder
Mildred (Harrington) Snyder and Maurice Harrington
Sister and Brother
In the Late 1970s
Photo Contributed by Frank Snyder
Here is a copy of the Birth Certificate for Mildred Harrington, born January 14, 1896.
The Streby History of Cherry Township (1903) gives us a snapshot of the Harrington family origins
in Sullivan County:
Cornelius Harrington came from County Kerry, Ireland, to America in 1824 and settled on the Fred Saxer
farm in 1828. He married his first wife while yet in Ireland and to them was born one son, Jerry, of New York.
He worked on the canal near Berwick and, after settling in Cherry, he married Mary Litzelswope,
a daughter of Joseph Litzelswope, of Cherry. Later, he purchased 400 acres of land at a tax sale
in which was included the farm belonging to the C.J. Harrington estate. Their children were:
Mary Ann, married James Sheedy of Overton
Margaret, married William Keefe of Troy, Bradford County
Eliza, married John Farrell of Dushore
Catharine, deceased, married Joseph Ambs
John, died in infancy
Cornelius, deceased, married Eliza Gahan
Susan, married William O’Connell of Elmira
Joseph, of Lestershire, NY
Ellen, married Joseph Brogan of Dushore
Hannah, died when young
James H., of Dushore
Emma, married Dennis Whalon [sic] of Colorado
Here is a picture of the old Harrington homestead taken in 1906:
Harrington Family Homestead
Cherry Township 1906
Photo Contributed by Frank Snyder
Lets' turn our attention to the dairy business which, in many ways, the Harrington family created in Sullivan County.
Harrington Dairy Plant
Dushore, PA
1930s
Photo Contributed by Frank Snyder
It was James, the son of Cornelius, Sr., who founded the dairy business that would eventually bear
the family name and be the foremost distributor of milk and dairy products in this part of Pennsylvania. You can read about
the history of the Harringtons, related families such as the Gahans, and the Harrington dairy business at Cornelius Harrington and Descendants
in Faces and Families of Old
Sullivan County, Group Two. We also have a letter written in 1978 by Abe Snyder to a Harrington relative in Illinois that relates further
details of the history: Letter to Dennis Harrington.
Ice Cream Truck
Harrington's Dairy, Dushore, PA
Undated Photo
Photo Contributed by Frank Snyder
The Harrington Dairy was more than just a commercial enterprise. It served as an important element of the social
cement holding Dushore and its citizenry together in the middle 1900s. For example, here is the attendance list
for the 1940 annual company picnic; as the
reader can see, attendance included both local residents and visitors from many communities within fifty
miles or more of Dushore. Of course, the dairy enterprise served and had employees resident throughout
northeastern Pennsylvania and the Southern Tier of New York. The picnic program for 1942 which heads
the 1940 attendance list below indicates that the annual picnic
began as a formal event in 1939. Here is the list:
Annual Harrington Picnic 1940.
The house at 125 Churchill Street,was actually the Harrington homestead... According to Frank Snyder,
prior to the marriage of his parents in 1925, the house was occupied by
Grandmother Harrington, and Mildred, her daughter and also sister to Maurice. Frank's parents. Abe and Mildred (Harrington) Snyder,
lived in the house thereafter, sharing it with Grandmother
Harrington until her death in 1936. They stayed there after she passed away.
Maurice and Mary (Lane) Harrington lived at 232 German Street, the address of Harrington House, in Dushore for
over fifty years. Maurice actually had it built. Maurice continued to live there after his wife's death
and shared the house with his daughter, Margaret "Peg" (Harrington) Gerrity, and her family. Peg's husband,
John Gerrity, is in the last photo posted below with Frank Snyder and Father Conboy.
Editor's Note: Just a little more Dushore history: John Gerrity's sister,
Catherine Gerrity, married Bob Lambert in 1947. He was a partner and then sole owner of Fitzpatrick & Lambert,
which is now owned by Bob Lambert's sons.
In 2009, the Plastow family, who had bought the house on German Street some twenty years earlier, converted it to
a bed and breakfast,which they call "Harrington House". You can learn a great deal about the Harringtons and the
house on German Street at
Harrington House in 2010.
Here are several pictures of the houses at different times in their past and in different seasons, and a
Christmas card sent out from the Plastows at Christmas 2010:
Harrington Homestead
125 Churchill Street, Dushore, PA
1920s
Photo Contributed by Frank Snyder
Harrington Homestead
125 Churchill Street, Dushore, PA
1930s
Photo Contributed by Frank Snyder
Harrington Homestead in Winter
Undated Photograph
Photo Contributed by Frank Snyder
Christmas Card from Harrington House
232 South German Street
December 2010
Photo Contributed by Bob Sweeney
The Snyder family was active in a variety of cultural, social, commercial and historical preservation functions in Sullivan County.
The following pictures give us a perspective on these activities and the other residents of the area with whom the Snyder came in contact in these
regards. Family names such as Holcombe, McDonald, Frawley and Lambert populate our site and also the local heritage of Sullivan County genealogy and
social history.
Snyders, Frawleys and Holcombe
L to r: Margaret Mary Snyder, Mildred
(Harrington) Snyder, Joe Frawley, Frank Snyder, Pauline Holcombe, Blanche Frawley
Dushore, PA 1965
Photo Contributed by Frank Snyder
The Harry Thomas Traveling Minstrels
L to r: Abe Snyder, Robert "Bob" McDonald, Bob Lambert,
Kelt Meehan and Harold Thomas
Christmas Season 1950s
Dushore, PA
Photo Contributed by Frank Snyder
Connolly and Snyder Couples
L to r: Lewis T. "Lou" Connolly, Mildred (Harrington) Snyder,
Regina (McDermott) Connolly and Abe Snyder
Christmas Season 1950s
Dushore, PA
Photo Contributed by Frank Snyder
Dushore Trio 1971
L to r: Frank Snyder, Reverend Joseph T. Conboy
and John J. "Jack" Gerrity
At A Parade in Dushore in 1971
Photo Contributed by Frank Snyder
Copyright © 2010 Robert
E. Sweeney and individual Contributors. All Rights Reserved. Prior written
permission is required from Robert E. Sweeney and individual Contributors before
this material can be printed or otherwise copied, displayed or distributed
in any form. This
is a FREE genealogy site sponsored through PAGenWeb and can be reached directly
at ~Sullivan County Genealogy Project (http://www.rootsweb.com/~pasulliv)
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