Source:
Pioneer Period and Pioneer People of Fairfield Co., Ohio.
by C. M. L. Wiseman
Publ. F. J. Heer Printing Co., Columbus, O.  1901

Transcribed by Sharon Wick

FAIRFIELD COUNTY IN THE WEST..
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SOME OF ITS SONS WHO HAVE OBTAINED DISTINCTION WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

     THE great West is well sprinkled with Fairfield County people.  The traveler can scarcely stop anywhere without meeting their smiling, friendly faces.  They greet the visitor from the heart and their hospitality is unbounded.
     Of those who have become wealthy and attained prominent positions and influence in financial circles, Andrew Jackson Snyder, of Kansas City, Missouri, is the most striking and distinguished figure.  His youth was one of toil and hardship, but he was honest and industrious.  Before he had attained his minority, he was at work on the farm of the late Frederick Lamb, of Walnut township, at ten dollars per month.
     Tiring of the farm, he started for the West, and falling in with a recruiting officer, he enlisted in the regular army and served five years.  He was a fine specimen of the physical man, tall and well proportioned, and was one of the finest types of the athletic American soldier.  When he left the army he settled in Montana, then a wild and lawless country.  He was soon elected sheriff of his county, an office that then required nerve, strength courage, and good common sense.  The office was no sinccure, for he had to deal with toughts, outlawed characters, robbers and murderers.
     Through the perilous times of his official life he faithfully performed his duty and brought many men

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to justice.  In his official career he accumulated some money and concluded to go to Missouri, which he did.  Thee he met, wooed, won and married a good woman.  Kansas City was then attracting the attention of enterprising men and thither he went.  He soon became a leading dealer in cattle and prominent at the stock yards.  He prospered and invested in land, stocked it with cattle, and soon earned the title of "Cattle King."  His ranch on the plains was said to contain 45,000 acres.  He became interested in one of the leading banking institutions of the city and soon was elected its president, a position he still holds.  He has long been rated a very wealthy men.  Fairfield County has sent out few men (if any) who have been as successful in life as the poor boy of fifty years ago, known as Andy Snider of Indian Creek, Richland township.  He is devoted to his family, has a fine home and lives in style becoming to his position and wealth.  His wife is one of the accomplished and fine looking women of her adopted city.  She is the daughter of Noah Beery and the grand-daughter of John Beery, brother of George and Adam Beery.
     Her father moved to northwest Missouri many years ago.
     Two sons blessed their union, one of whom, a fine young man, died just as he was budding into manhood.
     The other son is a promising man.  He married the daughter of General Richard Oglesby the bosom friend of Abraham Lincoln and a distinguished ex-soldier.
     Fairfield County gave two other men to Missouri who achieved distinction.  Samuel Reber and John W.

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Noble.  Judge Reber was a son of Valentine Reber, a very prominent pioneer, and was born near Royalton, Ohio.  He received a good education and studied law in Lancaster.  He received a good education and studied law in Lancaster.  After admission to the bar he removed to St. Louis, Mo.  Here he practiced his profession with success and closed his career on the Common Pleas bench.  Judge Reber married a daughter of Gen. Wm. J. Reese.  He left a widow and a large family of children.  He was himself a member of a very large family of brothers and sisters, all of whom filled honorable and respected positions in life.  The best known of his brothers in this county were Thomas and Henry.  Lyman Allen, Wm. L. Clement and Andrew Peters were brothers-in-law.  Of this large family but two survive, Mrs. Huber, of Seneca County and Joseph, of Independence, Mo.
     His brother John was at the time of his death one of the wealthiest men in Pickaway County.
     John W. Noble was a son of Col. John Noble, one of the pioneers of Lancaster, and for years an honored citizen of both Columbus and Cincinnati.  His son, John was born in Lancaster a year or two before the Colonel took up his residence in Columbus.  We can barely claim him as a Lancaster boy, and must divide the honors with Columbus.  His youth was spent both in Columbus and Cincinnati.  We do not known where he studied law or when he settled in St. Louis.  This is known, however.  He graduated at Miami University and was a classmate of President Harrison.  The acquaintance then formed ripened into friendship and had much to do with his selection in after years as Secretary of the interior.  He was a very capable Cabinet officer, and those who had occasion to meet him pronounced him a courtly gentleman.  He returned

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to St. Louis and resumed the practice of law.  His brother, Henry Clay Noble, another Lancaster boy, practiced law in Columbus and was for some years a partner of Henry Stanberry.

ENOCH BEERY SEITZ

     Enoch Beery Seitz, son of David Seitz, who died in this county was born near Berne, Fairfield County, Ohio, in the year 1841.  His parents were farmers and the widow moved from Fairfield to Darke County, where young Seitz was brought up.  He graduated at the Ohio Wesleyan University in 1870.
     He was a teacher in the public schools of Greenville for a number of years.  He early displayed great aptness for mathematics and devoted his leisure hours to solving the hidden mysteries of numbers.  He was a contributor to several magazines devoted to mathematics, among them the Mathematical Visitor and the Educational Times, of London, England.  His original investigations astonished the world and he was soon classed as one of the great mathematicians of the world.  He furnished over five hundred model solutions to the School Visitor, in which he displayed great ingenuity and ability.
     His special branches were "Average and Probabilities," and in them he was acknowledged the superior of any man in the whole world.
     He ranked with and stood side by side with Woolhome, the mathematical champion of England.  He was a born mathematician, and when a mere boy astonished his teachers by displaying an ability beyond their comprehension.

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     In the year 1880 he was the fifth American to be honored by being elected a member of the London Mathematical Society.
     For some time previous to his death he was a professor of mathematics at the State Normal School of Missouri, located at Kirksville.
     This brilliant young man died in the prime of life, aged 37 years, in the year 1883.  His fame is world wide and his works will endure forever.  His remains were buried at Greenville, the scene of his early labors and triumphs.
     Mr. Williams, of this county, was a threat mathematician, but he did not come in contact or touch with the mathematicians of the world, hence his reputation is local, while the name of his friend is known and honored wherever mathematics is taught throughout the world.
     The mother of Prof. Seitz was a Beery, a prominent family in this county for nearly 100 years.  She was a daughter of Abraham Beery, of Rush Creek.