No examination of the Amos Snell story (ours is the first that we know of in about 65 years) is complete without a few words on what became of the well-to-do family.
In 1901, Snell’s son, Albert, was penniless and living in the barn on the property. He was committed to an insane asylum and died in a rooming house a few years later.
Mrs. A.J. Stone, one of Snell’s daughter, sued for a share of the estate. Her claim was struck down on the grounds that she was allegedly an adopted daughter (I don’t know all the particulars of the trial, but what a horrible verdict!)
One of his daughters married several times, beginning by running away with a coachman at 16. She eventually left him and was forgiven by the family (daughters of rich men who married servants could generally be expected to be kicked out of the family in those days). She was married often, including being married and divorced from the same guy three times. She was eventually known as Mrs. Grace Snell-Coffin-Coffin-Walker-Coffin-Layman-Love-Love. Papers called her The Most Married Woman in the World. The second marriage to Mr. Love appears to have lasted; her name was still Mrs. Love when she died in 1941.
Given the number of properties that Snell owned in life (including most of what is now Milwaukee Avenue, which he turned into a toll road), legal wrangling over the estate went on for years – shares were still being argued over in 1943!
There was a $10,000 reward for the capture of WIllie Tascott offered; the last known attempt to claim it came from Doyle Quigg in 1946. He claimed to have proof that his “grandpappy” had killed Tascott in Florida fifty years earlier, and served on a chain gang as a result. By 1946, though, no reward was really on offer, and no one could prove that the man Quigg’s grandfather had killed was Tascott.