George Snyder was born circa 1885 in North Carolina. As a child, Snyder was stricken with an unnamed disease that left him paralyzed down one side of his body. Despite the impediment, he proved himself to be a good worker and secured work as a laborer on many of the farms in the Surry County area. In September 1912, he had a confrontation with another farmer named W. Strawther Cook, shooting and killing the man. Snyder was sentenced to fifteen years in the penitentiary.