Lightfoot

Beman Snow, known as Lightfoot, won a bronze medal in 1904 lacrosse with the Mohawk Indian team representing Canada. Some sources list the Mohawk Indian team as actually an Iroquois Indian team, as the Mohawks were one of the six nations of the Six Nation Confederacy of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Native American peoples. They apparently were from the area surrounding Brantford, Ontario, although Lightfoot/Snow appears to have lived his entire life in the United States, although he would not have been a US citizen until 1924 because of discrimination against the Native Americans.

As one would expect with First Nation athletes from that era, little is known of his life, although we have found his Anglicized name, Beman Snow, and that he was actually from the Seneca tribe. He married Ida Starr in 1904 in Oklahoma and lived most of the rest of his life there. Starr died in 1907 after which he married Rachel Henry. He had one daughter by Starr and three sons with Henry, all of whom were born in Oklahoma.

He has no known relation to Gordon Lightfoot, the Canadian folk singer who sang at the Opening Ceremony of the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, although Gordon Lightfoot is from Orillia, Ontario, not far from Brantford.