The Curious Tale of Asa Snow
Few towns are without their oddities, and the “ghost town” of Dana, Massachusetts, is no exception. His name was Mr. Asa Snow.
By Bethany Bourgault|Sep 06 2016|
Asa's relocated grave is located in his family's plot, marked by this stone bearing his initials.
Credit: Bethany Bourgault
Dana, Massachusetts was one of the four lost towns of the Quabbin. Read about them here.
Credit: Bethany BourgaultCredit: Bethany Bourgault Asa Snow had a reputation for being a bit of an odd fellow. In town, he went by the nickname, “Popcorn.” We don’t know if he chose this name for himself, but nonetheless, that’s what the townspeople called him. The inspiration behind the name was entirely his own doing, though. He limited his diet to almost solely milk and — you guessed it — popcorn. Not much else. Asa either distrusted or disliked much of the food available to him, as a diligent vegetarian cautious to the point of paranoia of anything on his plate. He also just loved popcorn. Rumor has it that when he died, he had his coffin filled with the salty treat. Yet his peculiar diet choices pale in comparison to the legends surrounding his death.
The legend of Asa Snow gets much stranger after he died.
Credit: Bethany BourgaultCredit: Bethany Bourgault Beginning in 1844, just a few years after he moved from Cape Cod to Dana, neighbors noted that Snow had developed a preoccupation with death. That year, his first wife, Isabelle, took her own life with a piece of cloth that she ripped from her dress. Some speculated that she had been driven insane. One of the couple’s young daughters died shortly after.
Tragedy struck the Snow family in 1844, and again in 1845.
Credit: Bethany BourgaultCredit: Bethany Bourgault The Snow women were originally buried in the local cemetery, but Asa decided he wanted to keep them closer. He built a family tomb in his backyard and moved their long-dead bodies to it, but not before displaying the decaying corpse of his wife to anyone curious enough to look. (Storytellers often say that this is when his second wife, Eunice, arranged to be buried elsewhere.) Asa then began focusing his energy on entrepreneurial advancements, lending money to neighbors at high interest rates and, despite his own unyielding support of vegetarianism, selling meat in the town. Some think that he buried a large portion of his earnings on his property, but others contend that it went into the building of his incredibly expensive casket. Before his death, he had a coffin built out of metal (extremely unusual at the time) with a glass window at the head. He arranged for a local undertaker to visit him each day for for seven days after his death to ensure that he was truly dead before they buried him.
These stones, possibly the remnants of the farmhouse cellar, are all that remain of Asa Snow’s former home.
Credit: Bethany Bourgault
My father was from that to win never could find out much about his family Eugene Joslyn,can you help?
So awesome. This is my 3rd great grandpa..what an intriguing story lol
Where would asa Snow house would be located if you wanted to hike up there? Possibly where was that guy with the horse was at like near his home or near what?
about a quarter mile down the road to dana common, on the left is the cellar hole and on the right is the field. a little further up the road theres another farm.