William Joseph Snelling
William Joseph Snelling was an American writer and fur trader, born on December 26, 1804, in Boston, Massachusetts. He was the son of Josiah Snelling, a military officer, and faced early challenges, including the death of his mother and later the loss of his first wife. Snelling briefly attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point but left to pursue opportunities in the West, where he became involved with the Dakota Sioux and worked as a fur trader and army scout, gaining a deep understanding of their language and culture. His literary career began after returning to Boston following his father's death, during which he wrote adventure stories, travelogues, and a biography of Andrew Jackson under a pseudonym. Notably, Snelling's satirical poem "Truth: A New Year's Gift for Scribblers" criticized established authors while promoting lesser-known poets. He married three times and had three daughters, the last of whom was born posthumously. Snelling passed away from a stroke in 1848 at the age of 43, leaving behind a legacy that emphasized the importance of firsthand experience in writing about the American West and its indigenous cultures.
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William Joseph Snelling
Writer
- Born: December 26, 1804
- Birthplace: Boston, Massachusetts
- Died: December 24, 1848
- Place of death: Chelsea, Massachusetts
Biography
William Joseph Snelling was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 26, 1804. His father, Josiah Snelling, would later win distinction as a military officer at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811. His mother, Elizabeth Bell Snelling, died in 1810, leaving Snelling, an only child, to live with relatives in Medford, Massachusetts, where he attended Luther Stearn’s school. In 1812, his father married Abagail Hunt and continued his military career. He obtained an appointment for his son to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1818, and then headed west to assume command of the U.S. Fifth Infantry at Fort St. Anthony (which would later be named in his honor) near the location of present-day St. Paul, Minnesota.
Snelling was unhappy at West Point and soon left to seek his fortune in the West. He wandered briefly with a band of Dakota Sioux before finding work as a fur trader and army scout. He acquired a working understanding of the Dakota language and culture, which made him of considerable use as an interpreter. In 1826, he married Dionice Fournier, a French Canadian woman who lived in the area, but she died the following year. When his father died in 1828, Snelling returned to Boston, where he decided to earn his living by writing.
He produced a number of adventure stories and travelogues in which he freely mixed fact and fiction in the style of the time. He also wrote a biography of Andrew Jackson, which he published under a pseudonym but was known to be his work. He won particular notoriety with his long satirical verse Truth: A New Year’s Gift for Scribblers (1831), in which he condemned a number of established writers for having large egos but small talents. At the same time, Truth enhanced the reputations of several poets of considerable talent whom Snelling believed the literary community had overlooked.
Around this time, Snelling married Mary Leaverett, who died in 1837. The following year, he married his third wife, Lucy Jordan, with whom he would have three daughters, the last one born after his death. Throughout his career Snelling insisted that a writer must actually experience the West, particularly the culture of the Native American peoples, before presuming to write about it. His personal experience made his own work particularly rich and vivid. Snelling died of a stroke in 1848, at the age of forty- three, and was buried in Boston.