Snyderville Pioneer Cemetery

Samuel Snyder bought this basin for a yoke of oxen, trading Parley P. Pratt for his claim on the green plateau the pioneers called Parley's Park. His family raised a sawmill and gristmill on Spring Creek, and Snyder's Mill lumber went into the first Park City buildings and into the Salt Lake Tabernacle. The town took the family's name. On this knoll they buried their own — beginning with a six-month-old grandson — where the graves look out over the whole basin. The little cemetery still keeps its rise above the Snyderville sprawl below.

What the plaque says

In the spring of 1849, Samuel Comstock 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.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Utah Olympic Park — 1.4 mi
  The ski jumping and bobsled venue from the 2002 Winter Olympics
• Park City Mountain — 3.8 mi
  The largest ski resort in the United States, grown straight out of a 19th-century silver town.
• Park City — 4.4 mi
  Silver built it. Snow saved it.
• Park City Main Street — 4.4 mi
  A historic mining town turned world-class ski and film festival destination

More markers nearby

• Park City Pioneers — 3.3 mi
• Park City Miners Hospital — 3.8 mi
• John C. Green Jr. — 3.8 mi
• Utah Coal & Lumber — 4.4 mi