William, Sam, Clementine Snell 1892

William Wallace Snell was born in Osceola, St. Clair County, Missouri in 1864, to William Wintermute Snell and Loretta Crockett Snell, great niece of Davy Crockett.

In about 1879, William and his family moved to Erath County, Texas. There he met and married Clementine Bell Underwood on September 12, 1889.

After moving to Crosby County in the Texas panhandle, their first child, Samuel, was born in1890. Their second son, Wilvie "Bill" was born in 1891, and a daughter, Dolly Ann was born in 1892, in Hale County, Texas. There they homesteaded 160 acres from 1892 through 1896.

William and Clementine followed his father, William Wintermute Snell, and at least one brother as they moved the ranching operations to Oklahoma in about 1896. William was a "cowboy" working the cattle and moving them to market. The family lived on the rough Oklahoma plains in a "dugout" house close to Magnum Oklahoma. Here in Greer County Oklahoma their fourth child, Cordie Delanie Snell, was born on September 1, 1899.

William would have to be off months at a time on cattle drives. This left Clementine with four kids, living in "dug out" house with "half civilized Indians coming through stealing everything," and even keeping up with two additional teenage nephews living with them.

Looking for a better life, William and Clementine saved enough money to join the Blalock colony in 1903, as part of the original group. William bought 20 shares of the Blalock Stock at $50 a share. This was one thousand dollars, a lot of money in 1902. Plus there were traveling expenses; $1130 for the train trip to Mexico. They left Oklahoma for Chamal, Mexico by train on February 16, 1903.

As William and his family traveled by wagon on the trail from the Escondon train station in Mexico to the new Blalock Mexico Colony the flooded Forlon River forced them to camp near the flooded banks of the river. Here William delivered their fifth child, Jewel Forlon Snell. Jewel was the first American child born to the colony in Mexico. Another child Grace Lee Snell was born September 1, 1905 but died the next day and is buried in the American Cemetery in Chamal next to her mother Clementine Snell.

William was a lover of music, playing the fiddle at many dances. After his religious conversion, he not only gave up the fiddle, but also broke it over a corner fence post, so that it would not temp him in the future. He continued his strict beliefs and only attended church services in Chamal when a Church of Christ preacher came to town. He even sold livestock and paid for the Church of Christ preacher to visit Chamal.

At first the Americans in Chamal prospered, including the Snells, but from 1913 to 1916 the Mexican government became increasingly unstable and revolution broke out. Bandits or soldiers, the right term depended only on whose side they were, roamed the area and took the law into their own hands.

In fear the Americans sought cover in the mountains north of the Chamal Valley. William and Clementine were part of the first group to take their family into the mountain hideout at Lonesome Cove in May of 1916. William was 52 and Clementine was 48 at this time. The trip was several days long and water and food were scarce and limited in supply.

Like others who went into the mountains, they feared that their home and property left behind would be destroyed, or worse, that the bandits would follow them up the mountain and kill them.

After reaching Lonesome Cove, Jewel Snell was one of the boys who served as courier as part of a 24-hour camp guard. Delaine Snell severed as a lookout with a cow horn to blow should bandits come up the trail. William, like the other men would go on "hunting trips" for fresh meat or venture back to the valley for news, and to 'raid" their own farms and houses for supplies hoping not to get shot or followed back to the mountains hideout.

After spending the summer of 1916 in the mountains, the Snell family was able to escape to United States. They stayed for months in Sabinal, Texas, 40 miles west of San Antonio with Clementine's sister and brother-in-law. William and sons worked in a sawmill. Clementine and her daughters picked cotton. This was tough times, not knowing if they could ever go back to Chamal, and wondering if there was anything left of theirs in Chamal.

When they returned to Mexico, it was not at first to Chamal but to oilfields in Panuco, Vera Cruz, filled with American oil companies and workers. The Snell family ran a boarding house that catered to Americans for several years. This was hard work, cleaning and cooking every day of the week but it was better than picking cotton in Texas. They decided to move back to Chamal after hearing a rumor that a Mexican "General" liked their daughter Delaine and was coming to kidnap her for his pleasures.

Life did not get easier for William and Clementine after they left the boarding house. They moved back to Chamal and bought a small general store. Chamal, in the 1920's, was still very primitive. Cooking was done over a wood stove, there was no indoor plumbing, water came from a hand drawn well, and lighting was from kerosene lamps. There were no telephones until the 1930's, and electricity would not come to Chamal for another forty years.

They sold their store in Chamal to their daughter Delaine and her husband, Robert Britt, in 1927. William and Clementine lived in Chamal but had several parcels of land in the southern end of valley.

After William, died on September 16, 1941, Clementine was invited to move to San Antonio with her daughter, Delaine Britt, but she never wanted to move from Chamal. She said that she was in the San Antonio great flood of 1921 and never wanted to go back. She liked being close to her first son, Samuel, and his wife Mary. They cared for her in her old age until she passed on in 1945. Both William and Clementine are buried in the American Cemetery in Chamal.