Art:
Nussbaum's "End of John Brown"

A friend called my attention to a posting on the website Ask Art, which features the painting, "The End of John Brown," by the late Ervin Nussbaum.  Unfortunately, you have to pay to get membership access to this website, which is geared to art collectors, dealers, and students, so the only image available is somewhat small.  According to The Voice, an online publication based in Winsted, Connecticut, "The End of John Brown" was donated to the Torrington Historical Society, Torrington, Connecticut (the place of John Brown's birth in 1800) by the artist's widow, Muriel Nussbaum, in September 2001.  It is described as a "large oil painting."

Ervin B. Nussbaum, "The End of John Brown" (1940)
Torrington Historical Society (Torrington, Conn.)

Although I am hardly an expert on such matters, I find this a hauntingly beautiful image, fascinating and intense in depiction.  To be sure, it is historically inaccurate as far as Brown's last hour and ride to the site of his gallows in Charlestown, Virginia, on December 2, 1859.  There were no citizens present in the procession from the jail to the open field where he was hanged.  The town was heavily endowed with militia by order of the governor; with few exceptions, citizens were proscribed from viewing the hanging.  Fearing that Virginia might be invaded by Brown's allies, slave masters were encouraged to stay home and guard their "property," which included their human chattel.  As suggested in this painting, Brown indeed sat on his coffin in a (furniture) wagon, but he was dressed in a dark suit with red slippers, and a black (wide-brimmed) "slouch hat."  Certainly he would not have presented such a slumped and defeated appearance.  From beginning to end, John Brown appeared cool, confident, and courageous--something that won him a small measure of sympathy from some onlookers.  Finally, despite the beautifully dismal shades of brown in the painting, the morning of December 2nd was sunny and unseasonably warm.  One of the last things Brown said pertained to the beauty of the western Virginia countryside.

Still, Nussbaum apparently grasped the heaviness of Brown's whole time as a prisoner in Virginia.  He was deeply and passionately hated and would have been lynched were it not for the military.  Local editors railed against him, and streams of visitors took advantage of visitation rights to verbally harangue and castigate him and the imprisoned Harper's Ferry raiders quite often.  Besides the surrounding hostility and contempt, the picture perhaps represents the larger sense of human interest that pushed in on John Brown, even as it pushed him forward to the gallows.  We have long forgotten, but in the stormy weeks between the raid and his death, he was the foremost subject of newspapers of the day.  The whole nation was fixated upon the little jail in Charlestown, and the whole nation read detailed accounts of his final hours and courageous walk up the stairs of the gallows to his execution.  The subject of "The End of John Brown" is not so much a prisoner of Virginia militia, but a brooding outcast who seems resigned to die while being crowded by the southern people who found him both repugnant and irresistible.  It is the people who escort him away, not the vaguely suggested soldiers who lead the procession.  This is a great interpretive work, and I would love to have a reproduction.  "The End of John Brown" (1940) won first prize at the Central Ohio Competition in 1941 and was shown at the San Francisco Museum, the Butler Art Institute, the Philadelphia Academy and the Corcoran Gallery.

Ervin B. Nussbaum
(The Hour, 11 Nov. 1994)

The Artist

From what I have been able to glean online, Nussbaum was born in Columbus, Ohio, on November 11, 1914, and was a graduate of Ohio State University.  After winning the Central Ohio Prize, "The End of John Brown" was exhibited throughout the United States.  Nussbaum's years in New York City entailed a range of work, from non-objective canvases to semi-abstract landscapes done in city parks, the New England countryside, and along the shore.  He later focused on Hebraic themes, and was commissioned to do a bronze sculpture for the Trumbull Library in Connecticut.  He also created a wooden bas-relief for Temple Emanuel in Yonkers, N.Y.  Nussbaum also did sculptures of exotic birds in wood, metal, or combination of media.  Nussbaum died in Norwalk, Connecticut, on January 22, 1996, where he had lived for thirty-six years. He had also worked as a professional graphic designer and illustrator prior to his retirement. His work is in the permanent collections of the Columbus Art Museum, the Frankfort Art Museum, and the Norwalk Museum.

Thanks to Norman Marshall for calling this painting to my attention--LD

Sources

"Ervin B. Nussbaum (1914-1996)," Ask Art website.

"Sackler Gallery show spotlights Ervin Nussbaum." The Hour [Norwalk, Ct.], 11 Nov. 1994, p. 15

"Ervin Nussbaum: Illustrator, graphic designer." The Hour, 24 Jan. 1996, p. 27.

"Book Signing at Torrington Historical Society."  The Voice News [Winsted, Conn.], 25 Oct. 2002.

Wordwise--
"The Sentiment of Mercy": Emerson on Brown

"It would be nearer the truth to say that all people, in proportion to their sensibility and self-respect, sympathize with John Brown.  For it is impossible to see courage and disinterestedness and the love that casts out fear, without sympathy.  All gentlemen, of course, are on his side.  I do not mean by 'gentlemen' people of scented hair and perfumed handkerchief, but men of gentle blood and generosity, 'fulfilled with all nobleness'. . . . The sentiment of mercy is the natural recoil which the laws of the universe provide to protect mankind from destruction by savage passions.  The arch-abolitionist, older than Brown, and older than the Shenandoah Mountains, is Love, whose other name is Justice. . . ."

Excerpted from Emerson's speech at Salem, Mass., on January 6, 1860.  Also quoted by F. B. Sanborn, "Comment by a Radical Abolitionist," The Century (July 1883), p. 415.

On this date--
John Brown's trial begins in Charlestown, Virginia, October 25, 1859

Osawatomie Notebook--

Pro-Brown Preachers Helped to Shape His Historical Legacy

The Case of Reverend S.H. Taft 

Grady Atwater *

John Brown was eulogized by abolitionist ministers in the north following his execution for his raid on Harpers Ferry, Va., one of them being an abolitionist minister named Rev. S.H. Taft of the Church of Martinsburgh, N.Y., who delivered a eulogy for John Brown on Dec. 12, 1859.  Rev. Taft’s sermon illustrates the salutatory nature of the sermons and how they helped to build John Brown’s image as a major figure in American history, and his role in combatting proslavery forces in Kansas Territory.

“My text this afternoon, my hearers, is ‘John Brown,’” Rev. Taft wrote. “You will find it recorded in all the newspapers of the land and it will yet be inscribed in bold characters on the record of the World’s History!”

Rev. Taft argued that John Brown was not executed for his Harpers Ferry raid, but for his success in his militant abolitionist crusade in Kansas Territory, and wrote: “For be it known, my hearers, Brown was not executed for his tragic conquest of Harpers Ferry; he was taken prisoner, tried and condemned for this; but he was executed for having driven the myrmidons of slavery from Kansas.”

Rev. Taft further stated that John Brown’s actions in Kansas had so inflamed the spirit of revenge in southerners that they hung him in Harpers Ferry.  “But they remembered that to John Brown, more than any other man, the slave power owed its signal defeat in Kansas,” he wrote. “Such a crime could know not forgiveness, neither in gubernatorial mansion nor in the Legislative halls of Virginia.”

Rev. Taft further wrote that John Brown was a leader in the Free State forces and was an extremely effective guerilla fighter:

When the marauding forces led on by Atchison, Stringfellow and others were pouring into Kansas to overthrow the three great bulwarks of liberty – freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the ballot box – Mr. Brown gathered around him a band of faithful, upright men (for he would never allow a profane or unprincipled man in his camp), and went forth to defend the right. So successfully did he contend with the foe, that his name became at once a tower of strength to the Free State party, while it inspired corresponding terror in the hearts of the slaveholder and his allies.

Rev. Taft further argued that John Brown’s abolitionist crusade was successful at combatting slavery in Missouri: “A Southern writer lately said that the decrease in slavery in Missouri is so rapid that ‘Whole counties would soon be without a single bondman.’”

Certainly, Rev. S.H. Taft’s sermon alone did not establish the historical importance of Brown’s abolitionist crusade in Kansas Territory.  However, abolitionist ministers across the north eulogized Brown and extolled his actions in Kansas Territory following his execution in Charlestown, and helped build up Brown’s militant abolitionist crusade in Kansas into a major event in American history that is still studied today.

* Grady Atwater is the John Brown State Historic Site Administrator in Osawatomie, Kansas.  This article was originally published in The Osawatomie Graphic, 24  Oct. 2012, under the title, "Sermons boost Brown's legacy."   It is used by kind permission of the author.--Ed.

Shetterly's portrait of John Brown, with the
abolitionist's famous last written words
(Adirondack Almanack)

Take Note!--
North Country Event Remembers Emancipation, New Portrait of John Brown Introduced

According to The Adirondack Almanack (9 Oct.), John Brown Lives! and North Country Community College have announced that Robert Shetterly, an artist from Maine, will present his portrait of John Brown during a program in Saranac Lake and Lake Placid, New York, Nov. 30-Dec. 1, 2012.  The program, "Freedom Now, Freedom Then: The Long History of Emancipation," is designed for students, educators and the general public.  Shetterly's portrait of the abolitionist is the latest addition to his project, "Americans Who Tell the Truth," which the artist began ten years ago.  Shetterly's portraits include both contemporary and historical figures and feature their own words in order to provide a “link between a community of people who struggled for justice in our past and a community of people who are doing it now.” The project now includes more than 180 individuals of note, Brown following such historical figures as Abraham Lincoln, Sojourner Truth and Mark Twain.  The Brown portrait will be unveiled on Friday, Nov. 30th at North Country Community College, Saranac Lake campus, at the opening program of “Freedom Now, Freedom Then: The Long History of Emancipation.”

Artist Robert Shetterly
(Americans Who Tell the Truth website)

With a focus on high school and college students as well as their teachers, the program features an exciting array of important guests: independent scholar Amy Godine,  Kenneth Morris, Jr., the great-great-great grandson of Frederick Douglass and President of The Frederick Douglass Family Foundation, and Civil War Memory blogger Kevin Levin make educational presentations to students. A major component of the work of John Brown Lives!, an organization founded by activist Martha Swan, has been provide teachers excellent opportunities to interact with historians, scholars, and anti-slavery activists and artists.  In this program, Heaven Hill Farm in Lake Placid will be the venue for a full day of programs featuring Dr. Gloria Marshall-Browne on freedom and the Founding Documents; Dr. Margaret Washington on women and emancipation; Civil War Memory blogger Kevin Levin on film and emancipation; Magpie, the folk duo, on emancipation in song; Artist Robert Shetterly on art to promote courageous citizenship; Morris, President of the Frederick Douglass Family Foundation, on engaging youth, congregations and communities in emancipation today; and Dr. Franny Nudelman on emancipation our texts and textbooks.  David W. Blight, preeminent scholar on the U.S. Civil War, will give the closing keynote address, “The Historical Memory of the Civil War and Emancipation at 150” on Saturday night in Lake Placid (venue to be determined). Blight is the Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University and the author of numerous award-winning books and publications.

For more information, presenter bios, and a complete schedule of workshops, film and music programs, visit John Brown Lives! on Facebook or contact either Martha Swan, Executive Director John Brown Lives!, or Cammy Sheridan, Assistant Professor of Social Sciences at North Country Community College. Swan may be reached at 518-962-4798 or info@johnbrownlives.org. Sheridan is available at 518-891-2915, ext. 1271 or csheridan@nccc.edu.

For the complete source see: "John Brown Portrait Unveiling Set For History Event," The Adirondack Almanack (9 Oct. 2012).

History Speaks for Itself--
Thomas Jefferson and Blacks: Gradual Emancipation and Deportation, or "shudder at the prospect held up"

"The day is not far distant when the public mind must bear it and adopt it, or worse will follow.  Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate, than that these people [i.e., blacks] are to be free; not is it less certain that these races, equally free, cannot live in the same Government.  Nature, habits, opinion, have drawn indelible lines of distinction between them.  It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation and deportation, and in such a slow degree as that the evil wear off insensibly, and their place be pari passu filled up with free white laborers.  If on the contrary it is left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up.  We should in vain look for an example in the Spanish deportation or depletion of the Moors."

Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography Draft Fragment, Feb. 8, 1821, American Memory: The Thomas Jefferson Papers, Series 1(Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress).

JERMAIN WESLEY LOGUEN 

Inducted into the NATIONAL ABOLITION HALL of FAME and MUSEUM 

PETERBORO NY     

When and Where: Saturday, October 20, 2012,  Golden Auditorium, Colgate University, Hamilton NY 13346, 2:30 pm    

Robert Djed Snead, "Search for the Real Life of J.W. Loguen,"  Saturday, October 20, 2012     Golden Auditorium    Colgate University    Hamilton NY 13346 7:00 pm  

Robert Djed Snead,  "I Find No Fault in Him,"  Sunday October 21, 2012
Onondaga Historical Association, 321 Montgomery St, Syracuse NY 13202 11a - 4p     

Freedom Bound: Jermain Wesley Loguen & Jerry Rescue 2 pm         

Abolitionist Amble: Walking Tour of Syracuse Abolition Sites 
Reserve by October 16, 315-428-1864, ext 312 LUNCHEON & DINNER INFORMATION AND RESERVATION,  11:30 am Buffet Luncheon Catered by the Colgate Inn at the Hall of Presidents, Colgate University

Keynote: Honoring Tubman in 2013: Kate Clifford Larson PhD   4:45 pm, Dinner catered by the Colgate Inn at the Hall of Presidents, Colgate University

Keynote: NYS Historian Robert Weible, "An Irrepressible Conflict, New York State in the Civil War."   Dinner selection Chicken Piccata, Pork Loin or Vegetarian - BY OCT. 9!
To Reserve Meals and For More Information:   www.nationalabolitionhalloffameandmuseum.org   mercantile.gerritsmith.org   nahofm1835@gmail.com   Phone: 315-684-3262

Emancipation Proclamation Sesquicentennial—

Lincoln’s New Rules of War and John Brown

Today marks 150 years to the day that Abraham Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation.  The sesquicentennial of the Proclamation is noted in today’s New York Times, in an Op-Ed piece by John Fabian Witt, who reminds us that the Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863, although it was issued on this day in 1862.  More importantly, Witt, a professor at Yale Law School, and an author of Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History, puts the Proclamation in historical perspective.  He notes that the rebel government of Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy “condemned it as barbaric and inhumane,” and vindictively swore to treat captured black soldiers and their officers as criminals, not as prisoners of war.  In response, the Union promised to retaliate in turn.

Witt says that as a result of the retaliatory threat of the rebels, the Union was forced “to restate its position on the laws of war,” in December 1862—a few weeks before the Proclamation went into effect—Lincoln’s General-in-Chief, Henry Halleck, commissioned an extended statement of the Union’s views of the laws of warfare (drafted by a Columbia University professor named Francis Lieber).   Along with prohibiting torture, assassination, and abuse of prisoners of war, the new Union code “distinguished between soldiers and civilians” and “disclaimed cruelty, revenge attacks and senseless suffering.”  But the most notable aspect of the new code, he says, was that the federal government now “defended the freeing of enemy slaves and the arming of black soldiers as a humanitarian imperative, not as an invitation to atrocity.” 

This is important because it was typically assumed that any effort to liberate the enslaved and arm them for warfare was the declaration of servile war and insurrection—in other words, that it called for the slaughter of the slave master class, families and all, along with the larger white society that had promoted and protected slavery.  The white South was well aware of the bloody revolutionary overthrow of white supremacy that had taken place in Haiti in the 1790s, not to mention Nat Turner’s unsuccessful but bloody attack in southern Virginia in 1831 that left bloody trail and a pile of beheaded children—the ill-fated heirs of their slave holding parents.  I made this observation in a post (July 22, 2010) about the pro-slavery artist, Albert Volck, a political cartoonist in Baltimore.  Volk’s portrayal of Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation was downright diabolical—loaded with innuendos of bloody servile war, including portraits of John Brown and the Haitian revolution (including a white baby impaled on a pike).

Of course, Witt’s Op-Ed is intended to commemorate the Emancipation Proclamation anniversary with an eye toward how it led to the Union’s war code, which “became the blueprint for a new generation of treaties, up to the Geneva Conventions of 1949.”  The downside of the Union’s 1862 war codes, Witt says, was that it inadvertently made “terrible violence” acceptable. The Union code of 1862, triggered by the Emancipation Proclamation, did not “relieve war of its terrors,” he concludes, but rather stands “as a living reminder. . .of how thoroughly the United States’ most significant moment still shapes our moral universe.” 

His point is well taken.  There is something ultimately hopeless in the idea of engaging a “humane” war.  Wars necessitate bloodshed, violence and death, and even the seemingly most justifiable wars, guided by codes and practices deemed humane, result in “terrible violence.” However, not a single tyrant throughout human history has been vanquished by non-violence.  The famously passive Christian martyrs of Rome may have “won” ultimate “victory” without the sword, but it even took Constantine’s violent contests and final victory at Milvian Bridge to secure the peaceful Christian triumph over the empire. Like the proverbial “apple a day,” habits of peacemaking and dialogue can go a long way toward healthful peace.  Without the preferential option for peace, life would be far worse. But in matters of disease and severe affliction, “an apple a day” cannot do the terrible work of a surgeon, who must harm some part of the body in order to save the whole. 

Here and there one may hear regrets expressed about the tragedy of bloodletting that resulted when Lincoln held firmly to the Union, insisting that the seceding slave states could not be permitted to rebel.  With the sesquicentennial of the Civil War upon us, someone has lamented over those who “whistle” Civil War sentimentality while “washing their hands in the blood” of its tragic history.  In other words, some of the Civil War enthusiasm in this country seems indifferent to the expansive violence and bloodshed it required, something not existentially appreciated by the stereotypical Civil War history enthusiast.  In many cases, such military history enthusiasm tends to pull our attention away from the dire suffering and death that beset the nation, as well as the political realities of the war. 

On the other hand, there is a subtle conservative revision in all this sesquicentennial lamentation, particularly when the suggestion is made that more might have been done to avoid the war, and that the problem of slavery might have been dealt with by more rigorous pursuit of compromise by leaders in the North and South.  Of course, this is a counter-factual, revisionist, and simplistic antidote—as if something more might have been done to avoid war; as if the North could have compromised even more than it had already done in order to placate the pro-slavery ambitions of the Southern states. What policy would have avoided the war, when many pro-slavery state leaders were determined to secede if a Democrat did not win the 1860 election?  Or what could Lincoln have done beyond the compromise he offered—which left the slave states alone, as long as they did not extend slavery? What else could the United States have offered to the South, since Lincoln was evidently prepared to offer up three million black people as a sacrifice for the preservation of the Union?  However terrible, those who lament the Civil War’s mind-boggling loss of 600,000 lives and cry out against the war in historical terms, reflect a default racist perspective.  Any compromise to avoid war necessarily would have entailed the continuation of chattel slavery for many years; anyone who opts for the continued enslavement of millions of black people in order to save a half-million white soldiers cannot be considered just, no matter how terrible the loss. 

John Brown’s failed attempt to rescue the enslaved people of the South through a means of stealth and defensive fighting was greeted by pro-slavery leaders—like Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation—as an outright act of insurrectionary violence against pro-slavery society.  While Brown consistently and repeatedly stated that he never intended an insurrection—that is a literal war on slaveholders—it was assumed and insisted upon by his Southern prosecutors that his intent was malign and vicious.  For instance, the Governor of South Carolina at the time of the Harper’s Ferry raid declared that Brown and his men had invaded Virginia “to instigate our slaves to insurrection, and furnished them with arms to murder us on Southern soil.”*  In convicting Brown and his men on the count of “insurrection,” the State of Virginia was effectively categorizing his intentions as the same as Nat Turner, even though Brown was almost obsessed with the idea of avoiding servile warfare and retaliatory violence.

Witt’s discussion of the Union’s rules of war thus invoke discussion of John Brown’s real intentions, exemplified by his Provisional Constitution, as well as his manner of conduct in the raid.   Brown had intended to do what Lincoln finally came to do, which was put arms into the hands of black people, including formerly enslaved men.  When Brown did so, the North called it insurrection and the South screamed bloody murder.  When Lincoln came to the same realization of using black soldiers, it was now, as Witt points out, “a humanitarian imperative,” not “an invitation to atrocity.”  In fact, what Lincoln hoped to accomplish by using black soldiers is what John Brown intended all along.  Brown was expressly concerned that no prisoners of war be tortured or killed, that no rape or abuse of prisoners would take place in his army, and that freedmen and freedwomen would not commit retaliatory or vendetta murder once they were armed.  The Old Man would not avenge the murder of his own son in Kansas, and he intended his movement in the South to follow the same premise of liberation of the oppressed without descending into the bloodiest depths of servile war.  

Witt concludes that despite the scandal and fear created in the South by Lincoln’s emancipation agenda, its “moral triumph” succeeded insofar as the “feared terrors of a mass slave insurrection never came to pass.”  Instead, black soldiers proved to be “like roving institutions of freedom, abolishing slavery wherever they went.”  Might this also have proven true had Brown’s “Provisional Government of the People of the United States” become a reality in the South? 

           * “Important from South Carolina,” New York Herald, December 2, 1859, p. 4.

"Hell on Wheels":
Preacher Cole and John Brown

Last fall (Dec. 9, 2011), I pointed out the John Brown type character, "Preacher Cole" (played by Tom Noonan) in AMC's post-Civil War western series, "Hell on Wheels."  The AMC blog describes Preacher Cole as follows:

Noonan's "Preacher Cole" is a
negative John Brown type

Reformed from a life of violence and alcohol, Reverend Cole has turned his life to God. After riding with John Brown in Kansas and serving as a minister for the Union Army in the Civil War, Cole is sick of the slaughter; he genuinely wants to help the whites and Indians avoid another war. He takes up a holy mission of conversion and peace to prevent the annihilation of the native race. When his cries for peace fall on deaf ears, ignored even by his daughter Ruth, he abandons his family and turns back to personal demons of drinking and death.

Preacher Cole's character is fictional as almost all the characters in the series are thematic inventions by Joe and Tony Gayton, the producers of "Hell on Wheels." But while Preacher Cole's character is fictional, he is inspired by the Gaytons' perception of John Brown the abolitionist.  Early in season 1, we saw that Cole was a free state fighter in Kansas, and was one of the sword-wielding followers of Brown at Pottawatomie.  To no surprise, at the end of season 1, the Gaytons have their "John Brown" figure decapitating a soldier with his Pottawatomie sword.  In season 2, Cole had fallen into an alcoholic pit, only to be revived by an inspired vision of arming Native Americans against the intrusive railroad and the onslaught of the paleface.

In tonight's episode, Preacher Cole's effort rises and falls after he declares, "I was fool to believe that love would win over hate."  His attempt to have his "manifesto" published in the New York Tribune comes to naught and his "adopted" Native American son kills him rather than see Cole massacre the rest of his captives.  The episode is titled, "Purged Away with Blood."

Clearly, the Gaytons squeezed every last drop of blood out of their ghoulish perception of John Brown.  From beginning to end, their interpretation of Brown vis-a-vis Preacher Cole was that he was a deluded religious fanatic and violent killer.  In tonight's episode, Preacher Cole kills a railroad employee by running him through with a sword from behind.  Before he is finally stopped, he even makes another reference to John Brown to underscore that all this mad violence is rooted in Preacher  Cole's association with Brown.

"Hell on Wheels" has proven entertaining, though not always well written.  Admittedly, it does address a fascinating period in U.S. history, and it is not a neo-Confederate romance.  In fact, in this evening's episode, it is not only their imagined "legacy" of John Brown that is "purged away with blood," but also a Confederate doctor who had been part of a band of violent rebels.  The Gaytons seem to be suggesting that the nation had to be purged of both pro-slavery fanatics and anti-slavery radicals before "progress" could come.  It is probably not an accident that this episode's title is much like the famous Stephen Oates' bio of John Brown, To Purge this Land with Blood--a pretty awful title, I should add.

If this series continues another season, I'm relieved that Preacher Cole, the John Brown representation, has been eliminated. It is unfortunate that the Gaytons' premise about the abolitionist is entirely wrong: in turning back to his demons in this episode, Preacher Cole was really returning to his John Brown days, when he used violence, not love.  This is a far cry from John Brown the man who lived.  Brown was not compelled or motivated by a passion for bloodletting and violence.  Nor was he delusional and pathological in his reasoning.  Nor did he breed it in the men who followed him.  

John Brown's Rap (it's going down) - MC LaLa

From the Field--

“The Advent of a Hero”
DEDICATING JOHN BROWN’S TANNERY

by H. Scott Wolfe

For the sake of experimentation, I once purchased an immense butterfly net – with which I sought to capture a random sample of one hundred innocent, unsuspecting citizens. This sampling was totally unbiased – consisting of male and female; hyperactive and sedentary; corpulent and cadaverous; of all political persuasions…in fact, all races, creeds and prior conditions of servitude.

Once successfully netted, I would not allow these victims to regain their freedom until they answered the following query: “Who was John Brown, and what is his enduring contribution to American history?”

I recollect being sadly disappointed with the results. Most knew nothing of the Old Man. Only a smattering said that he may have had something to do with slavery. Another small segment proclaimed that he had something to do with a song…whose lyrics concerned either a mouldering body or a soul that kept marching. The Anglophiles assured me that he was the personal servant and court favorite of Queen Victoria (for which they received both their freedom and a valuable consolation prize). 

Well, the butterfly net is gone – smashed beyond recognition in pursuit of a cecropia moth (who wouldn’t have known much about John Brown anyway). But the overall results linger. I continue to experience great difficulty in locating people who can provide me with a succinct exposition of the Old Man and his historical import.

Which makes it all the more amazing to me that on the first Saturday in August, in the year 1935, over five hundred members (I said MEMBERS) of the “John Brown Memorial Association” converged upon a wooded grove and picnic ground in New Richmond, Crawford County, Pennsylvania to dedicate the surviving ruins of John Brown’s tannery. Today, I could carefully bait a trap with six cases of Hershey’s M&Ms and a pair of winning lottery tickets…and still not capture five hundred people who are even aware of John Brown – let alone his Pennsylvania tannery. Back in those palmy days of ‘35, his memory still both mouldered AND marched.

******

These pilgrims came to dedicate “a bronze tablet and a plaque, memorializing the famous abolitionist of pre-Civil War days, who once lived on the farm there and built the tannery, the walls of which are still standing.” The bronze plaque, bearing an image of the Old Man, had been mounted upon a substantial boulder on the southwest side of the property…its inscription reading:

JOHN BROWN

OF

OSSAWATOMIE

AND

HARPERS FERRY

1800  1859

And the bronze tablet, mounted on the cut stone of the ruin itself, reads:

THIS IS THE

FOUNDATION WALL

OF A TANNERY

BUILT AND

OPERATED BY

JOHN BROWN

1826 TO 1835

To the northeast was placed “a cannon mounted on a boulder, with a pyramid of cannon balls on either side, which were presented to the Association by the United States War Department.” (Quite a bit of irony here…as certain uniformed representatives of that same War Department had long ago killed and captured the Old Man and his men at Harpers Ferry.)

The Memorial Association had invested $2000 toward beautification of the site – including the tuckpointing of the tannery wall; construction (by the Depression-era WPA) of a stone wall and gate along the adjacent road; the grading of the lawn; and the planting of numerous shade trees. The Association’s President, Mrs. Bess Heath Olmstead of Washington, D.C., presided at the dedicatory ceremonies.

Following an ample noon dinner served by the New Richmond Ladies’ Aid Society, the program commenced. There was music – a brisk performance by the Corry Drum and Bugle Corps – appropriate songs by the Seminary Quartette of Nashville, Tennessee – and a duet’s rendition of “Indian Love Call,” an American “household staple” first performed on Broadway in 1924. Following these artful performances, a collection was taken – amounting to the princely sum of $19.35.

The Honorable Thomas J. Prather, the Master of Ceremonies, then introduced the Speaker of the Day, John Elmer Reed, President of the Erie County (PA) Historical Association. That distinguished gentleman spoke “on the characteristics of John Brown” and declared that “the farm at New Richmond is a constant reminder and inspiration to what John Brown lived and worked for.” He noted that “it has been shown many times that Nature works many centuries preparing for the advent of a hero, and it is believed this is the case with John Brown.” The Old Man “was a great man because he was possessed of a great idea.” Reed spoke for over an hour, but “everyone seemed deeply interested to the end, because it contained much about John Brown which was new to the audience.”

Following the brief appearance of the aging warrior Logan L. Dyke of Union City, “a Civil War veteran who was in the regiment that met the enemy on the ground where John Brown gave up his life at Harpers Ferry,” Mr. Prather noted that “John Brown had lived in five states, and that five states have erected monuments in his memory – Pennsylvania being the fifth. The other states are Ohio, New York, Connecticut and Kansas.”**

The John Brown Association also took pains to express “its gratefulness to Joseph Desmond, Frank A. Loveland and Guy D. Heath of Corry, and Frank Allsben of New York City, who purchased the tannery site 10 years ago for $200 and presented it with the deed.” And following the placement of a floral wreath beneath the bronze image of John Brown, the crowd dispersed…having spent an enjoyable and eventful day.

******

My day had been not quite so enjoyable. Despite the calendar showing late April, it had been a questionable trip across western New York and northern Pennsylvania. The higher elevations were beset with blowing snow…the lower, foggy and rain drenched. But as we sped down Route 77 in the direction of Meadville, the sun broke through and every pine bough and blade of grass seemed dripping with diamonds.

The junction sign was inconspicuous…hidden in shade…and rapidly oxidizing. “John Brown Road,” it declared. Turning left, we found ourselves on an unpaved lane…ending amidst a pond-pocked, mixed hardwood/coniferous woods…on the hill above, a farmhouse bravely venting columns of sweet-scented wood smoke. 

Our first symbol of historical importance was a blue and yellow-painted historical marker (which had first been placed on Route 77 in the fall of 1946). In dappled light I read:

JOHN BROWN’S TANNERY

On the side road, a short

distance south, are the 

remains of the tannery and

home built by the noted

abolitionist of Harper’s 

Ferry fame. Here, he lived

and worked from 1825 to

1835, employing as many as

15 men in producing leather.

Nearby, on a primitive kiosk of decaying wood, was a telephone number – and an offer of tours and a John Brown “museum.” I set the bitter half to calling, but…instead of being an exciting link to antebellum history, it was a mundane 21st century answering machine. “Alas!,” I blurted.

But my disappointment was short-lived as, to my right, stood the grove and ruins that had drawn that huge concourse back in ’35. It was difficult to imaginatively recreate the strains of “Indian Love Call” filtering through the pine needles. In fact, all was bucolic stillness…an occasional cricket chirping among the stones…a pair of agitated blue birds…the lowing of cattle in a nearby fenced pasture…the gurgle of running water on the adjacent hillside.  It seemed that the ceremonies were no longer under the charge of Mrs. Bess Heath Olmstead of Washington, D.C….they were supervised by Mother Nature herself.

I had the usual dry notes and statistics with me…The structure was 55 feet in length, 22 feet in width, and 9 feet in height…The foundations extend 5 feet below ground level…A fire destroyed the building in 1907…Prior to that time the structure had served as a tannery, cheese factory, jelly factory, grist mill and a residence…Frank Penfield Brown, of Erie, had designed the portrait plaque…Professor Russell D. McCommons, of the Art Department at Edinboro State Teachers’ College, prepared the model…It had been cast by the Bronze Metal Company…Ad infinitum.

But, immersed in the springtime sunlight, I thought little of statistical data. The physical environment…the sights, sounds, smells…had taken possession of me. I heard the grinding bark…the jingling traces of horses…the shouts of children. I saw John Brown, the successful entrepreneur, postmaster, pillar of the church. I also saw John Brown, agonized husband and parent, as he solemnly buried wife and son on the distant ridge.

The place had cast its magic upon me. Within the hour we were in bustling, hustling Meadville. At least our vehicle was there. My spirit was still in New Richmond, Crawford County, Pennsylvania.

******  

Author’s note: Besides my own questionable recollections, the sources consulted for this heroic essay were: 1) back issues of the Titusville (PA) Herald from August, 1935; and 2) The National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form for the “John Brown Tannery Site.”


* H. Scott Wolfe is the Historical Librarian of the Galena, Illinois, Public Library District and now a regular correspondent and contributor to this blog. He has devoted many years of grassroots research on John Brown, the Harper's Ferry raiders, and related themes.

**Prather failed to note that John Brown also lived in Springfield, Massachusetts, from 1846-1849.  There is no monument there in his honor, but he is remembered at the Connecticut Valley Historical Society and museum. [--Ed.]  

Also see: "A Visit to John Brown's Pennsylvania Home," 31 May 2006

News and Views--


Grave Marker of John Brown's Son is Recovered

Owen Brown's grave stone:
recovered and secure

To my knowledge, the first journalist to break the news of the recovery of Owen Brown's grave marker was Karin Bugge of the Altadena Patch.  Her report, dated August 24, notes that Paul Ayers of the organization, Save Altadena Trails, has acknowledged the simple gravestone has been found after having disappeared in 2004.  Owen Brown, one of the surviving Harper's Ferry raiders and third son of John Brown (born 1824) died in 1889, and his burial site on "Little Round Top" overlooks the city of Altadena, California.  According to Bugge's report, the disappearance of the grave stone was part of a controversy between the present owner of the land where Brown's body is interred and trail advocacy groups.  This conflict was well known, even to us on the east coast, who were dismayed to hear reports about the inaccessibility of the site due to the disagreeable position of the land owner--although it has never been made clear whether this man's scruples are antagonistic to Brown, or simply hostile toward people walking on his property.  Not having much information, we have assumed that this man removed the stone, and it was feared that it had been destroyed.  Whether or not this is what happened, we are happy to learn that the grave stone was found by a local man and his son and is secure.  According to Bugge, the Save Altadena’s Trails group intends "to 'take all necessary legal and logistical steps necessary to restore the grave stone to its rightful place.'"

Source: Karin Bugge, "Owen Brown's Grave Marker Has Been Found,"Altadena Patch (24 Aug.2012)
=============

The Quindaro Remembrance

The Statue at Quindaro:
"Erected to the Memory of John
Brown By A Grateful People"

KANSAS CITY, KANSAS--According to a number of reports, the Old Quindaro Museum and Information Center, Inc., in Kansas City was scheduled to host a John Brown Statue 101 year anniversary and recognition event this past Saturday, August 25.  According to Bettse Folsom of the Greater Kansas City Examiner, the museum's coordinator, Jesse Hope, spoke of the Old Quindaro Museum as offering information about families like his own--many of them being descendants of formerly enslaved blacks who still reside around the Quindaro community.  Folsom reports that Hope "wrote a book entitled Quindaro," and the museum is recognized by the National Park Service "Underground Railroad Freedom Act" of March 16, 2012.

The recognition event reportedly was to feature musical artists well-known in the Blues circuit, and a "Gospel Hour" held "in remembrance of our ancestors who found freedom [and to] witness it through song and praise." Hope said their ancestors thanked God as they looked back over the Missouri River at the land of their enslavement.  The Old Quindaro Museum has a website at http://www.oldquindaro.org/.

Source: Bettse Folsom, "John Brown's Statue 101 Year Anniversary," Examiner.com [Clarity Digital Group], 24 August, 2012.

===========

Elijah Lovejoy and John Brown

Historian and author Brian Dunphy recently published an article in Alton (Illinois) Telegraph about the historical link between antislavery editor Elijah Lovejoy and John Brown.  Dunphy is the author of Abolitionism and the Civil War in Southwestern Illinois. It is most interesting that Dunphy's article recounts the Lovejoy-Brown link in an online publication based in the very town where Lovejoy was killed while defending his printing press in 1837.  Lovejoy, a "New School" Presbyterian minister, devoted his life to writing against slavery, and was persecuted for his radical stance.  After a number of his printing presses were thrown into the water by racist mobs, Lovejoy took his final stand in a warehouse.  Much to the dismay of William Lloyd Garrison and other non-violent abolitionists, however, Lovejoy had armed himself and actually died in the exchange of gun fire against the mob.  Students of Brown's life are quite familiar with the impact that Lovejoy's death had upon the strongly independent Ohio abolitionist, and while Garrison and others expressed dismay and disappointment in Lovejoy, Brown saw him as a virtuous figure and martyr for the antislavery cause.  A prayer meeting convened in Brown's town of Hudson, Ohio, became the famous occasion of the abolitionist's public oath to fight slavery--a promise he fulfilled in ever increasing measures over the next twenty-two years.  Dunphy does a nice job of recapping Brown's life, tracing Brown's development in Springfield, Massachusetts and finally as a Kansas guerilla.  He recounts Brown's role in the Pottawatomie killings without indulging in the usual claptrap about "terrorism."  While Dunphy conveys the questionable but popular notion that Brown intended to take the weapons from the Harper's Ferry armory, nevertheless he provides a neat, concise and thoughtful sketch of Brown's life flowing out of the Lovejoy moment.

Brown as Union Man--
Black Painter David Bustill
Bowser's 1865 Portrait
(Bridgman Art Library,
Philadelphia History Museum)

"Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859," Dunphy concludes, pointing out that African American churches throughout the North designated it as "Martyr's Day," holding memorial services on behalf of Brown and his captured raiders.  In fact, "Martyr's Day" was a prominent day of remembrance in the black community well into the early 20th century.  Fortunately, the development of black history and the growth of black scholarship has allowed the African American community more substantial celebration of black history, and a rich history of black heroes and martyrs in their own right.  That Brown is more marginal to black consciousness and liberation activity 150 years later is not a mark of digression, but rather of progress.  Yet we should not fail to remember that in 1859, Brown stood shoulder to shoulder with black people as a liberation figure in the community--and he would in a sense link seminal black freedom fighters like Nat Turner with later activists in the post-Reconstruction era, when African Americans found themselves betrayed and once more locked in mortal struggle against white supremacy.  Brown was a conscious figure on the horizon of memory for blacks fleeing west from klan terrorism and other white supremacist assaults after the fall of Reconstruction. Despite the diminishment of John Brown in the popular memory of African Americans, he is not forgotten nor unappreciated in the annals of the struggle for justice against white supremacy.  Indeed, for the most part, it is still the appreciative consensus of the black community that offsets the prejudiced and unsympathetic voice that often characterizes the popular view among whites, who see him as a terrorist and trouble maker. 

Dunphy nicely concludes that the "victory of the North in the Civil War accomplished what John Brown couldn’t — the destruction of slavery. His soul indeed marched on with the victorious Union troops!"  This is probably no more true than of the noble African American men in blue who fought for the freedom of their own people, while so many whites were only fighting for the Union.  In a real sense, these were the Old Man's soldiers--the armed black warriors who proved him right in the final reel.  John Brown knew black men would fight valiantly for freedom if given the opportunity.  As history would have it, his tactical failure at Harper's Ferry did not prevent the grand vision from coming to reality.  When journalist William Phillips told him that blacks were too benign and inoffensive to fight for their freedom, the Old Man curtly marked his error.  "You have not studied them right,"Brown said, "and you have not studied them long enough. Human nature is the same everywhere."  John Brown was heavily influenced by the abolitionists, just as he was inspired by Lovejoy.  But unlike many of the white abolitionists, Brown had "studied" black people as people.  In contrast to southern propaganda, he knew that they were neither willing servants nor contented wards of their oppressors.  Yet in contrast to the prejudiced assumptions of the northern white man, he knew that black people--if given the opportunity and arms--would fight valiantly.  

He did not live to see it, but he was right.

See: John J. Dunphy, "Lovejoy’s murder led to John Brown’s war against slavery," The Telegraph [Alton, Ill.], 24 Aug. 2012.

From the web--
The John Brown Tannery Site in Northwestern Pennsylvania

17620 John Brown Rd., Guys Mills, Pa., 16327-1452; Phone: 814-967-2099; e-mail

John Brown Tannery Site is a historic archaeological sitelocated at Richmond Township, Crawford County, Pennsylvania. The tannery was built in 1825, by famed abolitionist John Brown(1800–1859). The site includes the ruins of the tannery; a one-story, rectangular structure measuring 55 feet by 22 feet. A fire destroyed the building in 1907. It is open to the public as the John Brown Farm, Tannery & Museum.

It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

John Brown Tannery Site
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Location:	500 feet south of the junction of Pennsylvania Route 77 and John Brown Road [17620 John Brown Rd.], Richmond Township, Pennsylvania
Coordinates:	41°43′8.5″N 79°57′3″WCoordinates: 41°43′8.5″N 79°57′3″W
Area:	0.5 acres (0.20 ha)
Built:	1825
Built by:	Brown, John
Governing body:	Local
NRHP Reference#:	78002383[1]
Added to NRHP:	December 14, 1978

Source: Wikpedia: "John Brown Tannery Site"

"In Pre-Civil War Crawford County, Pennsylvania, the farm of the great abolitionist John Brown played a strategic role in the Underground Railroad. Disbursing "depots" in the area, John Brown aided in the passing of an estimated 2,500 slaves. In the town of New Richmond, his farm and tannery was a major stop on the Railroad, marking its place in history from 1825 to 1835. The farm, now a museum, proves to be an educational, exhilarating experience as you learn more about this great man of history and his many heroic efforts. Tour the remnants of the tannery and take a walking path to the cemetery. (Wear comfortable walking shoes.) Plan a visit during the first weekend in May, and you can share in the "Spirit of Freedom" picnic, a community celebration in honor of John Brown's birthday (May 9). There is also a gift shop allowing visitors to take a piece of that experience with them to cherish for a lifetime. Open from April 15 to October 15, and in the winter by appointment only."  Source: "John Brown Farm and Tannery Museum," Visitpa.com

Osawatomie Notebook--
John Brown, "Presentism," and the Notion of "Terrorism"

Grady Atwater

John Brown is either labeled a terrorist or a freedom fighter, and Brown’s choice to utilize violence to work to abolish slavery in the United States is central to the debate over whether he was a terrorist or a freedom fighter. It is important to note that the word "terrorist" is mainly a modern term that is commonly used today to describe a private citizen who utilizes violence to combat a real or perceived evil in society. John Brown was not viewed necessarily as a terrorist by his contemporaries, but slave holders and proslavery advocates primarily viewed John Brown as a violent bandit; peaceful abolitionists viewed Brown as a morally incorrect extremist, and Brown’s supporters viewed him as a freedom fighter.

“Presentism” is a term that means applying the standards of the present to the people and situations of the past, and to label John Brown a terrorist is to use a mainly modern term to describe John Brown’s 19th century abolitionist crusade. Certainly, John Brown’s militant abolitionist crusade was condemned by slaveholders and proslavery advocates, but Brown was viewed as more of a violent bandit than a terrorist by his contemporary detractors.

Peaceful abolitionists worked to end slavery via political means, and when John Brown engaged in violence against slaveholders and their supporters, he brought unwanted negative press and the militant wrath of proslavery militia down on them in Kansas Territory. Peaceful abolitionists constantly tried to convince Brown to cease his violence against slaveholders and their supporters. Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, Va., was the final death knoll for the peaceful abolitionist’s efforts to abolish slavery, and thus peaceful abolitionists viewed Brown as a morally incorrect extremist when he utilized violence as part of his abolitionist crusade.

The author Grady Atwater, is
a life time scholar & lecturer
on the John Brown theme

John Brown’s admirers viewed his militant abolitionist crusade as a morally justifiable action because he was committing violence against slaveholders and proslavery advocates, who in the moral view of Brown’s admirers, were so obstinately morally corrupt that violence against them was morally justifiable. Brown’s admirers believed that the only way to convince slaveholders and their supporters to give up their slaves and the idea that slavery was a morally viable concept was via intimidation and violence. Therefore, when John Brown engaged in violence against slaveholders and their supporters, Brown’s admirers viewed him as a freedom fighter.

John Brown was not a terrorist by the standards of his day. To label John Brown a terrorist is to view a 19th century militant abolitionist by 21st century standards. Whether or not John Brown’s use of violence during his abolitionist crusade was morally correct was and is a fair debate, but to label John Brown a terrorist is a presentist error that fails to address the reality that John Brown’s world and the present world are different, and it is invalid to label Brown a terrorist.

— Grady Atwater is the John Brown State Historic Site Administrator in Osawatomie, Kansas.  This article was originally published in The Osawatomie Graphic, 8 Aug. 2012, under the title, "Brown--Terrorist or Freedom Fighter?"   It is used by kind permission of the author.--Ed.

Forthcoming--

The Tubman-Brown Story in
3D Animation Film

Erden Zikibay

Congratulations to Erden Zikibay, a brilliant animation and graphics professional, who has recently completed his Masters of Fine Arts thesis, and is finishing his 3D animation film, "Wishful: The Story of Harriet Tubman and John Brown."  On his website, Zikibay.com, he describes his film:

"Based on the story of American militant abolitionist John Brown and his pre-Civil War attempt to start a slave liberation movement in the Southern United States, this film deals with the controversial themes of American history: race, religion, and revolution.  When is resistance to an oppressive rule justified? Can religion inspire both liberation and tyranny? Does the right to resist differ from one group to another?  And what meaning does the connection and mutual work of three friends, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and John Brown, have in the larger context of American and world history?"

We are looking forward to the completion of this film project and certainly appreciate Erden's efforts to use this medium to bring such a central story in U.S. history alive for contemporary viewers.

YouTube--

"The Old Man"

Kevin Fountain

History Note--

They Sang "John Brown"

"Late in the afternoon our scouts were driven in and sharp picket-firing was heard, at the same time a cloud of dust was seen coming down the road.  The colored troops immediately took arms and sang 'John Brown' for ten minutes in expectation of an attack. . . ."

Report of Col. Alonzo G. Draper, 36th U.S. Colored Troops, Point Lookout, Maryland, June 22, 1864

 "There are a number of good Colored families on the ground; most of whom I visited. I can think of no place where I think I would sooner go; all things considered than to live with those poor despised Africans to try, & encourage them; & show them a little so far as I am capable how to manage." 

John Brown, to his father, Owen Brown, January 10, 1849

Family Photo--

Mary Buster, Adair Family Descendant

Mary Buster, direct descendant of Florella Adair (half sister of John Brown) at the John Brown Photo Chronology exhibition opening July 27 at the Watkins Museum in Lawrence, Kansas. Photo by Judy Sweets, one of the authors of the exhibition catalog. 

Mary will be reenacting her ancestor at the Freedom Festival in Osawatomie on September 15th at 11:00 a.m.

--Jean Libby

Mary Buster with Brown portrait (Photo by Judy Sweets)

Osawatomie Notebook--
Atwater: John Brown was Sane and Just in an Age of Flagrant Racism

John Brown was, and is often accused of being “crazy,” and was declared to be insane primarily because he believed in the equality of African-Americans and European-Americans, and was willing to fight and die for the abolition of slavery during a historical era when African-Americans were regarded as subhuman by most European-Americans. . . .  The reality is that John Brown was a sane man who held a genuine belief that all people were equal in the eyes of God, and that African-Americans were entitled to social, legal and economic equality in the United States. Brown was a pioneer in the civil rights movement who was willing to act on his abolitionist beliefs, despite the disapproval of the majority of Americans during his lifetime.

Grady Atwater is the John Brown State Historic Site Administrator at Osawatomie, Kansas

Excerpted from Grady Atwater, “Shocking behavior was normal for Brown,” Osawatomie Graphic, 1 Aug. 2012.  Click here to read the entire article.