Snyderville Pioneer Cemetery

IN the spring of 1849, Samuel Snyder became associated with Parley P. Pratt, who had the squatter’s right to the green mountain plateau which the pioneers named “Parley’s Park.” In 1850, Samuel Snyder bought out Parley P. Pratt’s claim for a yoke of oxen. Samuel Snyder and his oldest son, Ephraim Stockwell Snyder, became the first pioneers to build homes there and settle the basin. The land was fertile for farming, the grass plentiful for stock grazing, and the mountainsides were heavily forested. They built a reservoir, a sawmill, and a gristmill on Spring Creek. Snyder’s Mill produced much of the lumber used to build the first homes, mines, and businesses in the new territory as well as the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. Ephraim, who became a freighter, constructed the first road over Parley’s Summit and later hauled the machinery used in the Park City mines. Inevitably, the settlement became known as Snyderville.

The settlers chose this prominent knoll on Chester Snyder’s homestead for their cemetery. Chester was a brother to Samuel. The first child buried in the little cemetery was six-month-old Robert W. Snyder, son of Ephraim and Susannah Fullmer Snyder. Chester and his wife Electa, and twenty-seven of Samuel and Chester’s descendants are buried in this cemetery which overlooks the Snyderville basin.

This is the page for the Sons of Utah Pioneers marker in the Snyderville Pioneer Cemetery, click here for the Daughters of Utah Pioneers marker at the same cemetery, or here for Snyderville in general.

See other historic markers in the series on this page for SUP Markers.