Born to John Thomas Sneed, Jr., and the former Mecca Isabell Graham in Kentucky, Sebron Graham Sneed (1802-1879) moved with his family to Missouri, where he became a colonel in the state militia (1823) and Justice of the Peace of Clay County (1824-1825). In 1824, he married Marinda Adkins, and the couple had eleven children, including Thomas Eskridge (1832-1901) and Sebron Graham, Jr. (1836-1894). Moving to Fayetteville, Arkansas, in 1830, Sneed opened a law partnership with Williamson Simpson Oldham. He also served as the Fayetteville district’s prosecuting attorney (1831-1833), registrar of the United States Land Office (1839), district judge of Fayetteville District Court (1839), and judge of the Fourth Judicial District Court (1844-1848).
In 1848, the family moved to Austin, Texas, where Sneed helped organize the Travis County Democratic Party in 1857. The following year, he and William M. Walton formed a law firm, which Sneed’s son Thomas later joined. At the beginning of the Civil War, after the law firm dissolved, Thomas and Sebron, Jr., joined the Confederate Army, while Sneed, Sr., served as a Confederate provost marshal and volunteered his home as a recruiting station and military hospital. After the war, Sneed operated a farm until his death in 1879.
Source:
Koch, Mary Wilcox.
Composed of correspondence, legal and financial documents, plats, memoranda, and literary productions, the Sebron Graham Sneed Family Papers, 1830-1904, 1958, concern Sneed’s career and family. Correspondence, legal records, and financial documents chronicle Sneed’s activities as a U. S. Land Office registrar; judge for the Fayetteville, Arkansas, District Court; an attorney in Arkansas and Texas; an organizer for the Democratic Party in Travis County, Texas; and a provost marshal during the Civil War. Financial documents include receipts, pay-on-demand orders, and promissory notes, while legal documents consist of contracts for the sale of land, slaves, cattle, and lumber. Correspondence also includes letters between Sebron Sneed, Jr., and his wife Fannie during the Civil War, while newspapers contain copies of obituaries for Sebron Sneed, his wife Marinda, and their children: Sebron Sneed, Jr., Louisa Sneed Costa, and Thomas E. Sneed. Additionally, the collection comprises land plats, a notebook, a copy of a short story, and a 1958 biography on Sneed by W. J. Lemke.
This collection is open for research use.
Sebron Graham Sneed Family Papers, 1830-1904, 1958, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.
Basic processing and cataloging of this collection was supported with funds from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) for the Briscoe Center’s “History Revealed: Bringing Collections to Light project,” 2009-2011.