homestead located at Clinton, Ohio, a small village north of Mount Vernon. In July 1856, the 39-year-old Ellen Snowden became the head of household upon the death of Thomas Snowden, 53. The family soon had trouble paying the mortgage on their farm, prompting them by 1859 to add a line to their handbills proclaiming that they were trying "to secure means to pay back indebtedness upon their homestead." In 1864, the bank foreclosed on two of their farm's . Ellen Snowden paid the rest of the mortgage the following year. Their music allowed the Snowdens to integrate into their mostly white community. Music and the Snowdens were synonymous in the area; the 1860 census for Morris Township in Knox County lists their "Profession, Occupation, or Trade" as "Snowden Band", and an 1876 city directory for Mount Vernon lists them as "Snowden Minstrels". The Snowdens played local events, or received invitations telling them, for example, that "Snowden & Mrs. Snowden Are Respectfully Invited to attend a Birthday Party At Mr. Samuel Alberts of their daughter on Monday Evening. Please bring your music." 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. When not performing for profit, the Snowdens played for fun and practice in their Clinton home. 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. Their home faced Samuel Smith's tavern, and Smith's patrons often took drinks over to the Snowden yard to enjoy the music. Despite their reputation, the Snowdens were not immune to prejudice. 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. Snowden sued the man but ultimately lost the case. 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. Their affair lasted two years before Ellen Snowden learned of it and put a stop to the relationship. 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