Jefferson B. Snyder (January 19, 1859 – October 18, 1951), was a lawyer and politician from the Mississippi River delta country of northeastern Louisiana.
Snyder became a virtual political boss of Madison, Tensas, and East Carroll parishes; his leadership was rarely challenged, and politicians courted his endorsements.
Largely self-educated, he worked in his younger years as a toll collector at a bridge, as a clerk in a store, and as a Tensas Parish deputy sheriff.
Several years after the end of Reconstruction, Snyder relocated forty miles north to Tallulah, the seat of government in Madison Parish.
The appointment came during the second administration of U.S. President Grover Cleveland through the intervention of U.S. Representative Charles J. Boatner of Louisiana's 5th congressional district.
[2] Frank Voelker Sr., of Lake Providence in East Carroll Parish, like Snyder another supporter of the planter interests, served from 1936 until his death in 1963 as a judge on that same court.
"[7] Oliver Watson, a candidate for clerk of court, took to the stage to denounce the Klan as divisive and unnecessary because of the restraint long exercised in race relations within Tensas Parish.
[10] The Tensas Gazette questioned Snyder's backing of Long because the district attorney had for "practically his whole life-time been hand in glove with the New Orleans Ring".
He was a delegate to both the 1916 and 1924 Democratic National Conventions, which nominated Woodrow Wilson for a second term and John W. Davis, respectively, the latter to run against Calvin Coolidge.
[16] For many years, Snyder maintained a hunting lodge on Lake Bruin near St. Joseph, where he hosted guests, all men, ranging from the governor to a U.S. senator, an architect, a surgeon, a publisher, the local bootlegger, and African Americans of various occupations.
[1] On April 6, 1943, Snyder attended the Tensas Parish centennial ceremony held in St. Joseph, where he and Sheriff Elliot D. Coleman were among the most acclaimed speakers.
[17] Snyder, then eight-four, recalled with nostalgia the time when there were "no levees, no bridges, ferries nor roads, but the richest soil in the world, more fertile than the Valley of the Nile River.