This invitation from Arthur Kirby is typical: As we are going to have a Suinging[2] party the 12th off August on Saturday The neighborhood requested me to drop you a few Line to inform you that They want you to come and give us a Concert on that Same evening.

They traveled in a vehicle that one contemporary described as a "sort of stage coach carriage",[4] and they typically stopped in a village or town for a one-night engagement.

[6] The band consisted of five regular members from among the seven Snowden children: Sophia, Ben, Phebe, Martha, Lew (or Lou), Elsie, and Annie.

The children struck up a tune to gather attention as they headed to the concert site, usually a public location such as a schoolhouse, town hall, field, or graveyard.

The price of admission was nominal, typically 25¢ for adults and 15¢ for children, and payment could be as informal as dropping something into a passed hat.

[11] Audiences were primarily white, and the band performed in a manner that was pleasing to such tastes, yet which sustained their connection to their black culture and heritage.

They gathered their repertoire from sheet music, mail order, library songsters, and by playing with other musicians.

Some of their repertoire was from black composers; they sang both "Oh, Dem Golden Slippers" and "In the Morning by the Bright Light" by James A.

Despite their local celebrity, the Snowdens faced the same suspicion as other traveling performers and the racism directed toward blacks in general.

White townspeople likely denied them food or lodging at times, and the Snowdens had to be ready to deal with any lawmen who might mistake them for runaway slaves.

As a result, "We Are Goin to Leave Knox County", written in the 1860s, is the only surviving song of undeniable Snowden origin.

It even prompted the local black American Legion post to place a new grave marker on Ben and Lew Snowden's final resting site in 1976, reading, "They taught 'Dixie' to Dan Emmett.

[23] Thomas Snowden, a freed slave, and Ellen Cooper, a house servant, met and married in Knox County.

Although Thomas and Ellen Snowden were both illiterate, the children attended white schools and learned to read and write.

The Snowdens were primarily farmers by trade, with their homestead located at Clinton, Ohio, a small village north of Mount Vernon.

"[28] George Root, a white man, even asked to live with the family during the Civil War so that he could take singing and fiddling lessons.

In later years, Ben and Lew Snowden, on fiddle and banjo respectively, played in the second-story gable of their house for whoever would listen.

In 1864, Ellen Snowden sued white neighbors who were preventing her from planting crops; she won the case.

Days after the passing of the 15th Amendment on 3 February 1870, a local official prevented Ben Snowden from voting.

Beginning in 1878, Ben Snowden, aged 38, courted a 23-year-old white woman named Nan Simpson, who lived in Newville, Ohio, just north of Knox County.

[29] Socially the Snowdens professed conservative values, praising in their letters and music such concepts as women's virtue, temperance, and piety.

They attended the African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the few in the United States at the time that used instruments during the worship service.

Though there is no hard evidence to prove such meetings occurred, both John Balzell and Dan Emmett likely knew the Snowdens and played with them on occasion.