This is one of Snyder's Fall Scenes
I believe that Mr. Snyder was a lonely
man albeit married and I'm led to believe that the marriage was not
altogether a happy one. His desire to seek escape from his wife and his
aged father, who lived to be 90 years old, but who lived his later
years with William and Alena Belle, may have led to his seeking the
solitude of the deep woods and the high hilltop riverscapes.
William Washington was quite a
strong Prohibitionist in his preaching years, having heated bouts with
the President of Hanover College in letters to the Editor of the
Madison Newspapers. It is said that William Mck. learned to drink
heavily during his Civil War experience. That became another escape
medium for him, and may have caused problems with his father. However,
I have never seen a Snyder painting in which the workmanship was
sloppy, as might have been accredited to an inebriated person. His
great-granddaughter Patricia Eglet relates that one time her
great-grandfather found himself on a ladder trying to pull wires off
the ceiling, and when he realized there were no wires up there he quit
drinking "cold turkey".
There has never been anything said
about his religious affiliations except that they were Methodists who
apparently came with the family from Europe.
Patricia Eglet, remarked that he
made trips to Michigan yearly, but could not enlighten me as to other
travel that might have been indicated by the names of the list of
pictures with foreign-sounding names on his father's list. We do know
that Rev. William Washington Snyder spent six months on a trip to
Europe for the Methodist Church, but we do not know whether Will
accompanied him and could have seen the places listed. so we have no
knowledge.
Copyright laws may not have been
so stringent then as they are now, so that he could have copied other
travelers' pictures that looked pictorially beautiful to him. I know
that he copied one of Albert Bierstadt's mountain scenes. as I have the
picture in my collection that shows all but a small waterfall and a
herd of deer, The original is in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington,
D. C. I have pictures of both, with only small differences in
foreground subject matter. I know of no examples of genre painting or
controversial subject matter other than the Indian Chiefs in full
ceremonial regalia painted on leather.
William Washington was quite a
strong Prohibitionist in his preaching years, having heated bouts with
the President of Hanover College in letters to the Editor of the
Madison Newspapers. It is said that William Mck. learned to drink
heavily during his Civil War experience. That became another escape
medium for him, and may have caused problems with his father. However,
I have never seen a Snyder painting in which the workmanship was
sloppy, as might have been accredited to an inebriated person. His
great-granddaughter Patricia Eglet relates that one time her
great-grandfather found himself on a ladder trying to pull wires off
the ceiling, and when he realized there were no wires up there he quit
drinking "cold turkey".
There has never been anything said
about his religious affiliations except that they were Methodists who
apparently came with the family from Europe.
Patricia Eglet, remarked that he
made trips to Michigan yearly, but could not enlighten me as to other
travel that might have been indicated by the names of the list of
pictures with foreign-sounding names on his father's list. We do know
that Rev. William Washington Snyder spent six months on a trip to
Europe for the Methodist Church, but we do not know whether Will
accompanied him and could have seen the places listed. so we have no
knowledge. Copyright laws may not have been so stringent then as they
are now, so that he could have copied other travelers' pictures that
looked pictorially beautiful to him. I know that he copied one of
Albert Bierstadt's mountain scenes. as I have the picture in my
collection that shows all but a small waterfall and a herd of deer, The
original is in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D. C. I have
pictures of both, with only small differences in foreground subject
matter. I know of no examples of genre painting or controversial
subject matter other than the Indian Chiefs in full ceremonial regalia
painted on leather.
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| Snyder 6 | Snyder 7 |
 Don Wood |
Created June 30, 1998 and modified on February 7, 2006 using Homesite 5.5 HTML editor  Link to Homesite web site |
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