Jacob Snell was “unceasing and unrelenting” on behalf of the Republican Party. The Canajoharie Courier wrote, “A campaign once begun was waged until the polls were closed on Election Day, so in case of a narrow defeat he never felt the chagrin that he had not made his best and most ardent fight.”
Snell was born in Stone Arabia in the Town of Palatine in 1847 and lived on a farm with his parents. While in Palatine, he was elected supervisor and town clerk, running as a Republican in a Democratic town.
Snell married Nancy Nellis of Palatine in 1867 and they had two sons and three daughters.
A popular and powerful leader, the Amsterdam Recorder reported “prolonged cheering and hand-clapping” when “Uncle Jake” entered a 1903 Republican county convention.
Boss Snell’s large girth made him a target for political cartoonists. The New York Journal in 1901 showed a seated Snell with a diamond stickpin on his tie, which was lying atop his stomach.
The caption said, “Jacob Snell, whose diamond looks him square in the face.”
About 1870 he moved to Fonda. Two of his ancestors — an earlier Jacob and Alexander Snell —had been elected Montgomery County sheriff. Jacob Snell ran for sheriff in 1884 and lost. He was elected two years later, serving three years as sheriff. He became chairman of the county Republican committee, was a state committeeman and president of the village of Fonda.
Snell owned a company that did roadwork and he was president of Mohawk Valley Broom of Fonda. He owned a downtown Fonda hotel, later known as the Hotel Roy. He was president of the County Agricultural Society, which stages the Fonda Fair, for two years. He was superintendent of a section of the Erie Canal for a time.
Although both were Republicans, Snell and Gloversville Congressman and glove industry mogul Lucius Littauer were at odds over the years. Snell had threatened to run against Littauer for Congress in 1902 but dropped out of the race, reportedly to improve his chances of getting an appointment to be a prison warden.
It took a while, but Snell got what he wanted. He sought the job of warden at Clinton Correctional Facility, also known as Dannemora State Prison in northern New York. Snell didn’t get the job.
Finally, in 1904 Gov. Benjamin Odell named Snell the warden of the 4-year-old Napanoch Reformatory in Ulster County.
Snell died at the reformatory on Dec. 22, 1905 at age 58. “An abdominal abscess and acute kidney disease, surgical treatment of which was not practicable because of his immense girth, were the primary causes of his death,” wrote the Schenectady Union.
There is an often repeated story that when Snell died, the door of the room where he perished at the reformatory had to be enlarged to get his body out.
The Little Falls Times reported that Snell weighed 500 pounds and that twelve men were needed to carry his casket.
Amsterdam’s Democratic paper, the Morning Sentinel, actually came to Republican Snell’s defense on the subject of his size. The Sentinel scoffed at the Little Falls Times report, saying Snell did not even weigh 400 pounds and that “six small men” had no trouble handling the casket.
When he died, newspapers called him “one of the best known Republicans in the state.”
At the funeral in Fonda, popular Reverend Washington Frothingham, a Mohawk Valley historian, paid tribute to Snell’s Revolutionary War ancestors, saying seven of them had given their lives for their country.
After the funeral, Snell’s body was taken by train for burial in the Canajoharie Falls Cemetery.