Adam C. Snyder was born in Crab Bottom in Highland County, Virginia on March 26, 1834 to John and Elizabeth Halderman Snyder.  He prepared for undergraduate studies at the Tuscarora Academy in Juniata County, Pennsylvania and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in September 1856 as a member of the class of 1859. Snyder enrolled at Dickinson with James J. Patterson, whose father had helped found Tuscarora. While at the College, Snyder was elected to the Belles Lettres Society, but he transferred to Washington College in Maryland in 1857 to complete his education.