[3] Snow is widely known for his stories of pirates and other nautical subjects; he wrote over forty books and many shorter publications.

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.

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.