WMVO Good Times Great Oldies
Actual Wording of the Historical Marker
SNOWDEN FAMILY BAND
The Snowden Family Band was an acclaimed African-American string band who
performed in and around Knox County for nearly seventy years, from the 1850s
into the 1920s.
Buried in Morris Chapel Cemetery are Thomas Snowden (1803-1856), his wife
Ellen Cooper Snowden (1817-1894), and their nine children: Oliver, Sophia, Mary,
Ben, Lew, Phebe, Martha, Elsie, and Annie.
Born into slavery in Maryland, Thomas and Ellen separately relocated to Knox
County and to freedom during the 1820s. They married in 1834. In the 1850s, the
six surviving children formed a band under Ellen’s direction. Talented musicians,
the Snowden Family performed banjo and fiddle music for public events and at
their homestead near Mount Vernon.
Many believe that the song “Dixie,” attributed to minstrel Daniel Decatur Emmett
(1815-1904), originated with the Snowden Family Band.
Actual Wording of the Snowden Family Burial Site
Ellen Cooper left slavery in Maryland at age ten with Mary Greer, the sister-in-law of slave
owner Alexander Greer, to join her brother-in-law, John Greer, who had previously migrated to
Jefferson Township, in northeastern Knox County.
At age twenty-eight, Thomas Snowden, relocated to Knox County from Maryland with the
Burgesses, a white family, as a newly freed person of color.
Thomas Snowden and Ellen Cooper were married October 9, 1834, the first recorded marriage
of African-Americans in Knox County.
The Greer and Snowden families remained close throughout their lives.
Today, many of the Greer decedents still live in the North Central Ohio area.
