MORRIS TOWNSHIP — When we are sad and lonely, we’ll make the music play
Remind us of Knox County and friends so far away
Farewell, Knox County
The centuries-old lyrics rang out Sunday afternoon at Morris Chapel Cemetery in honor of prominent local Black musicians, the Snowden Family.
A historical marker was dedicated to the Snowden Family over the weekend at the township-owned cemetery.
The Snowden legacy originated with Tom and Ellen Snowden, who met, married, and settled on a farm in Knox County before the Civil War.
Tom was known to have been an entertainer. Knox County legend Dan Emmett was a young man who often visited the farm next door to Tom in Clinton (now the northern edge of Mount Vernon.)
Emmett’s grandfather’s farm adjoined the Snowden farm, and it seems a relationship was first forged there between Emmett and the Snowden parents and children.
The children, Sophia, Ben, Phebe, Martha, Lew, Elsie and Annie all became musicians to some degree or another involved with the band.
They were known to sing, dance, and play various instruments, including fiddles, banjos, guitars, dulcimer and flute, tambourine, triangle and bones for percussion.
Scott Burgess, whose great, great, great grandfather was William Burgess, came to Knox County from Maryland. William brought Tom Snowden to Ohio.
Tom Snowden was an integral part of “We’re Going to Leave Knox County,” the song a string quintet played at the dedication.
“They played it widely wherever they went and it tells about their musical exploits,” co-author of “Way Up North in Dixie” Howard Sacks said. “But it also tells other stories too.
“It tells a story of great economic hardship when Thomas Snowden died in 1856.”
The Snowden family fell behind on their mortgage payments, he said. The owner of the mortgage sued to try and throw them off the land and get back the farm.
The band was created by the Snowden children, aiming to raise money to save the farm.
“The song tells the story of their experience as Black folks in central Ohio before and after the Civil War,” Sacks said. “The Fugitive Slave Act essentially gave license to any White man to kidnap any Black, declare them a runaway slave, haul them down to the Ohio River and sell them into slavery.”
As a string quintet played through “We’re Going to Leave Knox County,” dozens listened under shade trees with the township-owned cemetery in the distance.
We start out in the morning into another town
We sing to you a pleasing song to all the stands around
And when we travel round and round and to our home return
We had a very good dance and the music pleased them well
Farewell Knox County…