Levi Tracy Snow, president and general manager of the Snow & Petrelli Manufacturing Company, possesses notable executive power combined with inventive ingenuity that has found expression in the production of various original devices that have constituted factors in the continuous growth of his business. The progressive steps in his business career are easily discernible and indicate wise use of his time and opportunities.

He was born May 30, 1860, at Prospect Ferry, Maine, a son of Odbrey Miles and Ruth Ridley (Ginn) Snow. The ancestral line is traced back to Nicholas Snow, who founded the family in the new world. He arrived at Plymouth, Massachusetts, on the ship Ann in 1623 and had a share in the division of the land there in 1624. He afterward resided at Eastham, on Cape Cod, and there filled several offices. He was an associate of Governor Prence and exerted a strong influence in public affairs. At Plymouth he married Constance Hopkins, a daughter of Stephen Hopkins, with whom she came to the new world on the Mayflower. Mark Snow, the son of Nicholas and Constance Snow, was born at Plymouth in 1628 and he, too, held many offices, including that of magistrate of the court. He married Jane Prence, daughter of Governor Prence. The ancestral line is traced down through Thomas Snow I and Thomas Snow II to Thomas Snow III, who removed from Eastham, Massachusetts, with his family and settled in Gorham, Maine. He was the father of Aaron Snow, who married Eunice Philbrick and removed to Monroe, Maine. Their son, Levi Snow, represented the family in the seventh generation and was the father of Odbrey Miles Snow, who came to Connecticut from Maine and settled in Thomaston in 1869. Three years later he removed to Norfolk, where he resided until his death, when he had reached the advanced age of eighty-one years.

Levi T. Snow, the son, attended the district schools of Maine and Connecticut and in 1883 received a diploma from the Pratt & Whitney Company of Hartford as a journeyman machinist upon completing a three years' apprenticeship in their employ. This was by no means, however, his initial work, for in his boyhood he had assisted in the work on the farm and in a granite quarry and at the age of sixteen left home, after which he engaged in clerking in general stores for three years. It was then that he went to Hartford and was apprenticed to the machinist's trade, serving the regular three years' term of indenture. In 1884 he came to New Haven to accept the superintendency of the plant of the Strong Firearms Company, making shotguns, rifles and cannon. When the firm closed out that business he purchased the cannon department, which he conducted under his own name, and from time to time added other lines. In 1906 he organized the Snow & Petrelli Manu-facturing Company, of which he is the president and general manager. He has taken out several patents on inventions, the most important being known as the Universal Food Chopper. This device was patented in 1897 and since that time millions of the choppers have been made and sold by the Landers, Frary & Clark Company of New Britain, Connecti-cut, and the demand therefor still remains undiminished.

On the 29th of March, 1897, Mr. Snow was united in marriage to Miss Sila Harrison Pierpont, a daughter of Cornelius Pierpont, a prominent merchant, manufacturer and street railway man, and a direct descendant of the Rev. James Pierpont, an early minister of Center church of New Haven and one of the founders of Yale College. After losing his first wife Mr. Snow was married June 3, 1916, to Mrs. Caroline B. Terrell, née Skinner, a representative of an old Connecticut family. Mr. Snow has three daughters: Ruth Canfield, who became the wife of Arthur T. Nabstedt, a Yale graduate of 1910; Helen Pierpont; and Marion Pierpont, who became the wife of Clarence L. Sibley, also a Yale graduate. The two sons of the family, Cornelius and Pierpont, both died in boyhood.

Mr. Snow is a believer in republican principles and usually votes with the party, yet does not hesitate to pursue an independent course and has protested against boss rule through the Non-partisan League and the progressive party. He has held but one political office, namely that of civil service commissioner, about 1910. For two years he was president of the New Haven Business Men's Association and is now a director of the Business Men's branch of the New Haven Chamber of Commerce. For many years he held membership in the Union League and at the present time lie is a member of the New Haven Country Club, the Sons of the American Revolution, the Founders and Patriots of America and the Chamber of Commerce. He is likewise a member of Center church, of the Congregational Club and the Young Men's Christian Association. His interests and activities have always been centered upon and directed through those channels which flow the greatest good to the greatest number and his cooperation and support of progressive measures have in a considerable degree furthered the public welfare.