Brief Note on the Serenades of Moxley’s Brass Band of Hagerstownd, Maryland

As part of the greeting United States Marshal Frederick Douglass received in Hagerstown in April 1879 was a serenade by Moxley’s Brass Band. 

The gesture was offered many times by Moxley’s Band over the years at informal and formal gatherings. 

Records indicate Moxley’s Brass Band offered a serenade to newspaper publisher Peter Negley in June of 1866 at his home in Hagerstown. In September of that year Negley and Douglass both attended a convention held in Philadelphia attended by “Radical Republicans.” Representing Maryland, Negley joined alongside other delegates from the state, including John L. Thomas, John A. J. Creswell, William J. Albert and others.   

Moxley’s Band furnished music at a political rally for the Congressional campaign of Lloyd Lowndes at the Lincoln House in Hagerstown in October 1874. Upon embarking upon his Congressional campaign in Maryland’s 6th District, Louis E. McComas was serenaded by Moxley’s Band in September 1876. 

The kind custom of offering rhythmic recognition to a local politician was a noted practice of Moxley’s Brass Band and other local colored bands in Western Maryland and nearby West Virginia.