The snow Eagle, 148 tons, was built at Sunderland in 1839 for Kay & Co. of Perth and traded from Tyneside to the Baltic for almost ten years. By 1848, she was running from Dundee to Riga but around 1850 she was sold to Kilgour of Dundee who kept her in the Baltic trade for a further twenty-five years.

A snow was a two-masted, square-rigged vessel similar in many respects, except mast construction, to a brig. Through the Oresund, during the summer trading season, passed the collier brigs and snows of the north-east coal ports, returning with timber, tallow and flax