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Edward Rowe Snow.
Snow, Edward Rowe. Legends, Maps and Stories of Boston and New England. Quincy, MA: George W. Prescott Publishing. 1965. hardcover. laid into the book is an envelope which contains a slip of paper onto which is pasted four wood chips, supposedly from the Titanic, Andrea Doria, the yacht America, and the frigate Constitution. isbn: none. scarcity: very scarce.

The image shown at the left is of the slipcase the book and maps came in.
Shown below is a blow-up of the advertizement found along the bottomedge of the slipcase.

This book has a tenuous yet possibly very exciting Titanic connection. Neither the ship nor the disaster is even mentioned in the text. But included with the book is an envelope containing supposedly genuine wood fragments from four renowned ships, Titanic, Andrea Doria, the yacht America, and the frigate Constitution.

Snow was known for his interest in collecting pieces of maritime wreckage. There was a picture taken of him finding wreckage of the Portland, for example. He has also included in some of his books gold and silver pieces of “pirate treasure” that he had found over the years. Tests on these gold coins appear to prove they are genuine.

The case for the authenticity of the wood fragments is harder to determine as there does not appear to be any documentation of when, where or how Snow acquired pieces of these ships. If such evidence does exist, I have yet to be able to track it down. The only information available is his acknowledgment, typed onto the page with the wood chips, that he had help in securing the samples from Joseph Allen Chase, Bror Tamm, Admiral Albert S. Snow, and Borden Clarke. No other details are given.

We are left, essentially, with the author’s word that the wood chips are the real thing. Overall, his reputation seems fairly solid, and his claims on such issues appear to be generally accurate. Still, without any provenance to back him up, there is no way to prove beyond a reasonable doubt whether the wood chips are real or not.

Here is a reproduction of the wood chip page included with the book. The page came in a small envelope with the words Wood Chips typed onto it.


Another Snow title that was released in a special edition with the wood chips from these four ships is his book New England Coastal Heritage, The Drama of New England in Charts, Maps and Memorabilia. This title was published sometime in the 1950’s to ‘60’s in Boston.

There may be other titles that were released in this special edition format with the wood chips, as well. So far though, I have documentation for only these two books.

With thanks to Kalman Tanito for tipping me off to the existence of this potentially very special Titanic related item.