Edward Rowe Snow
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Boston University (M.A., 1939)
Edward Rowe Snow | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | August 22, 1902 |
| Died | April 10, 1982 (aged 79) |
| Alma mater | Harvard University (B.A., 1932) [1] Boston University (M.A., 1939) |
| Occupations | Historian, writer, teacher |
Edward Rowe Snow (August 22, 1902 Winthrop, Massachusetts – April 10, 1982 Boston, Massachusetts) was an American writer and historian.
The son of Edward Sumpter and Alice Nichsols (Rowe) Snow, Edward Rowe Snow was born in Winthrop, Massachusetts in 1902. At the age of 16 he graduated from Intermountain High School in Helena, Montana. He spent the next 10 years traveling all over the world before returning to the United States in 1929 to study at Harvard University from which he graduated in 1932.[2] He then pursued graduate studies at Boston University where he earned an M.A.
Snow married his sweetheart from Helena, Montana,[2] Anna Myrle Haegg, on July 8, 1932, and they had a daughter Dorothy Caroline (Snow) Bicknell.
He was a high school teacher in Winthrop, Massachusetts. During World War II, he served with the XII Bomber Command, and he became a first lieutenant. He was wounded in North Africa in 1942, and discharged because of this in 1943.[3] He was a daily columnist at The Patriot Ledger newspaper in Quincy, Massachusetts, from 1957–82.[4]
Career
Snow is widely known for his stories of pirates and other nautical subjects; he wrote over forty books and many shorter publications. In all, he was the author of more than 100 publications, mainly about New England coastal history.[5]
Mr. Snow was also a major chronicler of New England maritime history. With the publication of The Islands of Boston Harbor in 1935, he became famous as a historian of the New England coast and also as a popular storyteller, lecturer, preservationist, and treasure hunter. Forty years later, he was still publishing.
He is also famous for carrying on the tradition of the "Flying Santa" for over forty years (1936–1980). Every Christmas he would hire a small plane and drop wrapped gifts to the lighthouse keepers and their families.
In the 1940s and early 1950s he hosted a weekly Sunday radio show for youngsters and early teens called "Six Bells" where one precisely at 3:00 PM would join in hearing of the adventures of pirates and buccaneers along the Atlantic Coast.
Many credit him with saving Fort Warren, located on Georges Island in Boston Harbor, in the 1950s.[6][7]
In August 2000, a plaque was dedicated to Mr. Snow on his beloved Georges Island.[6] A Boston Harbor ferry boat was named for him.[8]
Since 2002, several of his books were released in new editions published by Commonwealth Editions of Beverly, Massachusetts.
