In the spring of 1849, Samuel Comstock Snyder became associated with Parley P. Pratt, who held the squatter's right to the green mountain plateau the pioneers named Parley's Park. In 1850, Samuel Snyder bought Pratt's claim for a yoke of oxen. Samuel Snyder and his oldest son, Ephraim Stockwell Snyder, became the first pioneers to build homes there and settle the basin. The land was fertile for farming, the grass was plentiful for stock grazing, and the mountainsides were heavily forested. They built a reservoir, a sawmill, and a gristmill on Spring Creek. Snyder's Mill produced much of the lumber used to build the first homes, mines, and businesses in the new territory, as well as the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. Ephraim, who became a freighter, constructed the first road over Parley's Summit and later hauled the machinery used in the Park City mines. The settlement became known as Snyderville. The settlers chose a prominent knoll on Chester Snyder's homestead for their cemetery. Chester was Samuel's brother. The first child buried there was six-month-old Robert W. Snyder, son of Ephraim and Susannah Fullmer Snyder. Chester and his wife, Electa, and twenty-seven descendants of Samuel and Chester are buried in the cemetery overlooking the Snyderville basin.