Then and Now: The most prosperous Snow of Snowville

Edwin Snow was the youngest son of Joseph Snow, the self-made man whose numerous children populated what became known as Snowville. Like his father, who built a gristmill and sawmill on Snow Brook to augment his farm income, Edwin was an inveterate wheeler-dealer who was eternally on the lookout for another means of earning money.

As the youngest of the boys, Edwin may have enjoyed a little favoritism. Around 1850, his father sent him to the Parsonsfield Seminary for a formal secondary education. He was not yet 20 when, in 1856, he and some of his older brothers opened a store on the road from Eaton Center to Brownfield. Barely a week after his 21st birthday he married 15-year-old Helen Maria Perkins, and by the age of 23 he had bought out his brothers’ interest in the store. Through advantageous trading he accumulated hundreds of acres of land and dealt heavily in livestock. Eventually, he took over and expanded his father’s sawmill, making shingles and barrel staves and shooks, as well as dimension lumber and boards.