The Rectory
123 N. Market Street

The renovation and restoration of the rectory in 1999. From the Charles L. Fasold Flickr collection. https://flic.kr/p/n9NDa6

→ Constructed during the last years of the American Revolution, circa 1780-1783.

→ Built by the Simon Snyder family.

→ A four room log house with a larger frame home built around and above it.

→ Purchased in 1872 by Mary Kittera Snyder, Governor Simon Snyder’s granddaughter.

→ The Rectory has been put to several uses:

• a servant’s quarters for the Snyder Family,

• a secret meeting place for Masons during the Anti-Mason movement,

• a post office,

• the Rectory for All Saints Church,

• a Christian book store operated by Bob and Helen Walter,

• a family residence.

When the Governor Snyder Mansion was constructed in 1816, its north wall became the south wall of an interior passage leading to the Rectory. This may have been a secret entrance used by members of the Lafayette Lodge #194 Masons during the 1820s and 1830s when Masons attracted mobs (none reported in Selinsgrove) the members of which saw the Masons as an anti-democratic elitist, secret society. Perhaps the most unusual activity that occurred in this structure was the effort of the Snyder family to grow silk worms on the second story back porch. Between 1872 and 1879, this was the location of Selinsgrove’s Post Office when Mary Kittera Snyder was the town’s postmistress.

Selinsgrove History Association