Leslie Perkins Snow (1862 - 1934)
Born at Snowville (Eaton), NH; died at ?
Businessman; local and state legislator; lawyer; State Supreme Court Justice.
Portrait by Alfred E. Smith, 1922.
Presented to the State by Mr. Snow, 1922.

Leslie Snow's father, Anson E. Snow, was a Democrat, an active local politician, and a businessman. He represented Snowville/Eaton in both the State House of Representatives and the State Senate, and Leslie Snow learned as a boy of the merits and demerits of a New Hampshire political life.

Snow attended Fryeburg (ME) and Bridgton (ME) academies, graduating from Bridgton in 1881. He spent a year in business at Snowville, then attended Dartmouth College (1882/6). On his vacations Snow worked with his father at the family's sawmill/gristmill, cattle dealership, and general store. Snow also presided over the Eaton Town Meeting for a number of years.

An active figure on the local scene, Snow was elected to the State House of Representatives (1887/8). Then he served for three years as a special pension agent for the U.S. Government, working in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and Washington, D.C. (1887/90). At the same time Snow studied law, and he got his law degree from Columbia (now George Washington University) Law School in 1890. He was admitted to the Maryland Bar after graduation, but he never practiced law in Maryland. Instead he returned to Snowville (Eaton) and helped his father with the family businesses for a year. He was admitted to the New Hampshire Bar (August 1891) and joined the law firm of Worcester, Gafney & Snow at Rochester (NH). He also continued to help his father in the father-son firm of A.E. Snow & Son.

Snow's first wife had died; his second wife, Norma Cutter Carrier, was active socially and a member of the locally prestigious chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. The young couple were prominent in Rochester from the very first, and in due course Snow became president of the Rochester National Bank (1902), a warden in the Congregational Church (1903), and a member of the school board (1899 - 1904). Snow held numerous other important local positions as well, and he built three separate homes in Rochester as the years passed.

During the years of World War One (1914/18) Snow was Chairman of the Rochester Liberty Loan Committee, and County Chairman of the War Savings Committee. He was also active in statewide and New England area war committees, and two of his sons served with the American Expeditionary Forces in France (1917/18).

As a prominent lawyer and established citizen Leslie Snow was appointed to be a member of the New Hampshire Constitutional Convention (1918/20). He served as President of the New Hampshire State Senate (1921/2), and was appointed an Associate Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court (April 12, 1921).

References: John Scales, History of Strafford County (1914); H. H. Metcalf, ed., New Hampshire Notables (1919). Robert J. Peaslee, "Leslie Perkins Snow" [Proceedings of the Bar Association of...New Hampshire, 1934 - 1935 (1935), pp. 121 - 126.]