Click here for an updated chart and pictures of Horseshoe Cemetery and an alphabetical listing of who is buried there. Our cousins Don and Nancy Johnston, along with Jim Yarbrough, William Snidow and Larry Snidow, went to Horseshoe Cemetery in 2007 & 2008 and did an amazing amount of work to stabilize the tombstones in the cemetery. Don and Nancy hauled all the equipment necessary all the way from Maryland!
Below is a digital image of a hand-colored photograph of a landscape painting of the Horseshoe Farm. This photograph was hand-colored by Patricia Neaves Yarbrough, daughter-in-law of Anne Snidow Yarbrough. Our best information is that the original painting was done by an itinerant artist before the Civil War, and hung in the upstairs hall of the house. The original painting is still in the Snidow family to the best of our knowledge.
Excerpts of a letter from our former Historian, Thomas N. Clark about Horseshoe Farm...
As to the old house at Horseshoe Farm: This is my opinion (speculation) at this point. I feel sure that the old portion (the great hand hewn logs that are now exposed on the side next to the road) was Thomas Burk's home. We know that the property originally belonged to Thomas Burk, that the house originally stood on a bluff overlooking New River and was moved to its present location when the railroad was built about 1900. In his will of 1808, Thomas Burk says: "first, I give and bequeath to Clary my dearly beloved wife the dwelling house wherein I now live and the garden adjoining the same and a small field containing about twelve acres..... As to my daughter Mary Snidow I have given her a tract of land, horse, beasts & cattle and do not will her any part of my present property." I think Christian and Mary looked after her and lived in Thomas Burk's house. Facts about the house: We know that it is indeed very old and that Christian and Mary considered Horseshoe Farm their home and were buried there rather than at the ferry. We know that Christian owned Horseshoe Farm because in 1837 - a year after Christian's death - the heirs sold Horseshoe Farm to William H. Snidow (Giles County Deed Book E, page 225). William H. married Adaline Chapman on 17 of March 1836 and I think they enlarged the house to the proportions and elegance it once enjoyed as he was a well-to-do lawyer and had married well. William H. Snidow died intestate in 1863 (Giles Co. Will Book 4, pages 317-319) leaving an estate of personal property in excess of $80,000 plus much real estate. Among the listing of personal property was a piano worth $1,100, parlor sofa $200, a carpet $150, 1 doz mahogany chairs $2,100, Looking Glass $75, curtains $200, mantle ornaments $100, marble top center table $100, bureau $40. These were expensive items for 1863, so we know the house was well furnished. The bedroom furniture was equally impressive. He also had 23 slaves.
