Roger Snell was born in England in about 1647. He immigrated first to Maryland in 1661 and later to North Carolina by 1694, establishing himself in Perquimans Precinct. In 1697 he served as a witness in the case against Dorothy Steele, a colonist who had run away from her husband. In 1698 Snell was found guilty of theft in an unrelated case and sentenced to be branded on the thumb as a thief but had his sentence commuted due to his age. Snell died in Perquimans in 1708.