Albert Snowden (b. 1843 - d. 1908)
MSA SC 5496-050581
Enlisted with Company D, 39th Regiment,
USCT, in Montgomery County, 1864
Biography:
Albert Snowden was born in October 1843 to Isaac Snowden and an unknown slave woman. The Montgomery County slave statistics (taken in 1867 after Emancipation) listed Snowden as the slave of Rebecca Allnutt, who lived near Unity in Montgomery County, Maryland.1 Snowden would have received his freedom upon Allnutt's death. However, on March 3, 1864, Albert Snowden enlisted with the newly-formed 39th Regiment of the Maryland Volunteer Infantry in Montgomery County.2 The muster rolls listed him as "Alfred," a name variation that showed up in different records throughout Albert Snowden's life. He served in Company D along with one other soldier from Montgomery County, Henry Bruce. The 39th participated in battles that included Petersburg, Spotsylvania Court House, and the Crater.3 The 39th's muster rolls listed Snowden's slaveholder as Robert M. Gail, instead of Rebecca Allnutt.4
Having survived the Civil War, Snowden was mustered out in 1865. He initially returned to Montgomery County to reside near Brighton with his first wife, Charlotte, and their daughter Gussy (b. 1865).5 Charlotte Snowden passed away sometime between 1870 and 1880. By 1880, Snowden had moved to Baltimore City, where he lived with his second wife, Liza, and three children: Zenetia (b. 1871), George A. (b. 1879), and Walter (b. 1885). According to Baltimore City's 1880 directory, Albert and Liza Snowden resided at 6 Greenwillow Court, just north of the intersection of North Fremont and Franklin streets.6 Albert worked as a waiter, while Liza, also called Eliza, worked as a "laundress." Snowden later appeared in the 1890 veteran's census, with the pension record listing his wife as Levenia.7 By then, Snowden had moved just a few streets over to 538 Oxford Street, although he continued working as a waiter.8 He was again a widower in 1900, when that area's census taker misspelled his name as "Alfred Snoyden". His youngest child, five-year-old Walter, lived with him.9 A note in the margins of Snowden's entry referred to Samuel "Snoyden" on the previous page, and while the relationship between Albert and Samuel is unknown, their ages suggest that they may have been brothers or cousins.
Albert Snowden passed away on March 21, 1908 in Silver Spring, Montgomery
County. His daughter Charlotte Taylor (who may have been his daughter
"Gussy," since she was born the same year), gave his full name as Albert
Emery Alexander Snowden.10 He may have been buried at the Loudon
Park National Cemetery, where grave 12858 is inscribed with "Alf'd Snowden,
U.S.C.T." and March 10, 1909 as the date of death. The grave stands in
section C, site 1286.11 In 1998, the African American Civil
War Memorial in Washington D.C. commemorated Daniel Proctor among the 209,145
African American soldiers listed on the Wall of Honor. Proctor's name appears
on plaque C-54.12
1. MONTGOMERY COUNTY COMMISSIONER
OF SLAVE STATISTICS (Slave Statistics), [MSA CM750-1]. Slaveholder: Rebecca
Allnutt, per John S. Ayton her agent & attorney. Page 17 (Page 9 electronic).
U.S. Census
Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Rebecca Allnutt, 1860, Montgomery County,
District 1, Page 54, Line 35 [MSA SM61-213, M 7223-1].
2. ADJUTANT GENERAL, (Muster Rolls), 1863-1866, U.S. Colored Troops, [MSA S936-50]. Alfred Snowden, Company D, 39th Regiment, Line 47.
3. L. Allison Wilmer, J. H. Jarrett, and Geo. W. F. Vernon. History and Roster of Maryland Volunteers, War of 1861-65. Vol. 2 (Baltimore, MD: Guggenheimer, Weil & Co., 1899) 261.
4. ADJUTANT GENERAL, (Muster Rolls), 1864-1865, Slaves mustered into U.S. Colored Troops, [MSA S936-51]. Alfred Snowden, Montgomery County, Folder No. 50.
5. U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Alfred Snowden, 1870, Montgomery County, District 1, Page 32, Line 5 [MSA SM61-275, M 7256].
6. Woods's Baltimore City
Directory, 1880, Albert Snowden, Page 111. Ancestry.com.
U.S. Census
Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Albert Snowden, 1880, Baltimore City, District
209, Page 39, Line 9 [MSA SM61-304, M 4741-1].
Baltimore
City. Simon J. Martenet, Martenet's Atlas of Maryland, 1865, Huntingfield
Collection, [MSA SC 1339-1-75].
7. U.S. Census Bureau (Census
Record, MD) for Albert Snowden, 1890, Baltimore City, Baltimore Township,
Page 336, Line 11 [MSA SM61-351, M 26-1].
Civil War
Pension Index: General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934. Alfred Snowden,
1890, Maryland. Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2000. www.ancestry.com.
8. Baltimore, Maryland Directories, 1890, Albert R. Snowden. The Generations Network, Inc., 2000. www.ancestry.com.
9. U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Alfred Snoyden, 1900, Baltimore City, Ward 14, District 183, Page 28, Line 79 [MSA SM61-389, M 2375-1].
10. BOARD OF HEALTH, (Death Record, Counties), 03/1908, [MSA S1178-2713]. Albert Emery Alexander Snowden, March 21, 1908, Montgomery County.
11. "Pvt. Alfred Snowden." Find a Grave.
http://www.findagrave.com/index.html.
"Alfred
Snowden." Nationwide Gravesite Locator. United States Department of Veteran
Affairs. http://gravelocator.cem.va.gov/j2ee/servlet/NGL_v1.
12. "Albert Snowden" Civil War Soldiers
and Sailors System. National Park Service. http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/soldiers.cfm.
"The African
American Civil War Memorial." African American Civil War Memorial Freedom
Foundation and Museum. http://www.afroamcivilwar.org/.
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