DESCENDANT OF HARPER'S FERRY RAIDER VISITS JOHN BROWN'S GRAVE

Thomas Hopkins at Brown gravesite,
Dec. 4, 2010 (Naj Wikoff photo)

Lake Placid, N.Y. - Thomas Hopkins, a descendant of Harper's Ferry raider John A. Copeland, led a wreath-laying ceremony Saturday at radical abolitionist John Brown's grave at his North Elba farm.

This year's wreath-laying, which happens every year around this time to commemorate Brown's execution and burial in 1859, came at the end of a two-day anti-slavery convention in Lake Placid, meant to highlight both the history of slavery in New York and its continued existence.

"The situation today is different than it was when my uncle went to Harper's Ferry," Hopkins said in a brief speech at the ceremony. "Today slavery is not as overt or sanctioned by law as it was the past. It is usually placed within a 'poverty' or 'under-class' context. However, the fundamental process and results are very similar - denial of fundamental human rights, exploitation and denial of the American Dream."

Copeland was a free black man and Oberlin College student who took part in the raid with his uncle, Lewis Leary.

Brown led the raid on a federal arsenal in Harper's Ferry, (now-W.) Va. in 1859, part of his plan to get weapons to arm a slave insurrection. He was hanged on Dec. 2. Brown was buried at his farm in North Elba with his two sons and what are believed to be nine other Harper's Ferry raiders, including Leary.

Source: “Descendant of John Brown raider speaks at wreath-laying.”  Adirondack Daily Enterprise (December 7, 2010)

See Oberlin College’s website for article about John A. Copeland

JOHN BROWN IN THE NEWS--

"TRUTH" STRANGER THAN FICTION?

Today (Dec. 5) and Sunday, December 12, 2010, “John Brown’s Truth,” a multi-genre, musically improvised opera is being performed at the Live Oak Theatre in Berkeley, Calif.  This opera features classical and jazz singers and musicians, dancers, and spoken-word artists.  According to the Berkeley Daily Planet (Dec. 1), it “is a radical departure from traditional opera format and, as such, is truly an opera for the 21^st Century.”  

Although its libretto is written, its music is entirely improvised in each performance, meaning each performance is “musically unique, newly recreated in the moment.” The storyline of “John Brown’s Truth” portrays incidents taking place in the last year of John Brown’s life, including his imprisonment and hanging in December 1859. However, “the libretto is a mostly fictionalized rendering of conversations John Brown might have had—and in some cases actually did have, according to historical reports—expressing his actual beliefs, intentions, and plans.”  Based upon opera cast list on the opera’s website, the role of John Brown is also rotated from scene to scene, including male and female singing the role of Brown; four people sing John Brown’s part in one scene.  “This John Brown character is a true visionary,” concludes the Daily Planet, “who sings about freedom with Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, and others from Brown’s past, present, and future.  “John Brown’s Truth” was performed for the sesquicentennial of Brown’s raid in 2009.  It is created and written by William Crossman and directed by Michael Lange.

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Rebel inFestation’10 or, the Neo-Confederate Version of Harper’s Ferry “Reenacted” in Texas

According to an article on the news website of KLTV in Tyler, Texas, the Civil War recently “came alive” in a reenactment of John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, which took place 151—not 150 years ago—as the article conveys.  This outdoor drama took place in Gilmer, Texas, as “part of a living history lesson by members of the sons of confederate veterans.”  

That’s right.  The Sons of Confederate Veterans have reenacted John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry.  According to the reenactment “division commander,” Ray James, the purpose of the program was “to teach the public. . .and teach maybe 900 to 1000 school children.” 

Ray Walters, gray-headed, gray-bearded actor portraying Brown, opined afterward that his subject "was probably the original terrorist in the United States."   After reenacting the defeat of Brown, John Holley, the actor who portrayed Robert E. Lee, declared it “an honor to do things like this, its fun, and its good to be able to portray this time in our history, maybe they can learn something from what we did here today.” 

The Confederacy's "John Brown":
Whose History?

"History is history,” concluded the Brown portrayer.  “And if we don't teach it, if we don't tell it, it will die, it'll disappear," Waters says.  After raising $10,000-plus to fund this “learning experience,” about one thousand students from twenty-seven area schools attended the four-day event.

I wonder if these born-again rebels have any idea that many of their own ancestors were practicing real terrorism on black people, Mexicans, and Native Americans a long time before John Brown came on the scene.  While no one can argue that this reenactment was a “teaching” event, the question is whether these one thousand students were being taught the whole history.  Yes, “history is history.”  But one-sided, biased representations like this are not about teaching history.  What the Sons of the Confederacy did might more appropriately be called a four-day propaganda camp, a program intended to indoctrinate young people with the ideas and assumptions of white supremacist “history” and the fiction of the “Lost Cause” of the glorious and noble Confederacy. 

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“Who are You Calling a Terrorist?”

Who are you calling a terrorist?

“Prophet” Nat Turner? Union general William Tecumseh Sherman? Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest? Abolitionist John Brown? Social bandit Jesse James?

Turner, who led the largest anti-slavery revolt in the ante-bellum American South, might qualify. Born in bondage in 19th-century Virginia, the deeply religious Turner became increasingly convinced that only violence would turn the tide against slavery. The band of slaves and free black men he led killed 55 white men, women and children. Before his execution, he was quoted as saying he wanted to spread “terror and alarm” among whites, which sounds like a classic terrorist response.

But then slavery itself was a system of terror. Is that a mitigating factor in the way we perceive Turner? Does it make any difference at all?

Or consider James, for that matter. Often depicted in American legend as a kind of modern-day Robin Hood, James rode with a group of Confederate bushwhackers during the Civil War that murdered and tortured civilian Unionists. That was before he took up bank robbing as a trade.

Terrorists? The pages of American history seem chock-full of them. But, of course, that all depends on your definition.

And there’s the rub.

As recent events seem to indicate, there is no consensus definition. One person’s terrorism is another person’s principled conviction.

People have been trying to come up with a reliable, one-size-fits-all definition of terrorism at least since the 18th century when the Reign of Terror placed a deadly punctuation mark on the French Revolution. Groups from the African National Congress to the Jewish Defense League have been accused.

It’s enough to send one scurrying to a dictionary.

In mine, by the way, the definitions include “the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.”

By that definition, even abolitionist Harriet Tubman might qualify. Over the course of her many raids into the ante-bellum South, when Tubman escorted more than 300 slaves to freedom, Tubman was known to use threats and coercion when it suited her purposes. On one such raid, when morale plummeted and one man spoke of returning to the plantation, Tubman is said to have pointed a gun at his head and said, “You go on and die.”

But history also characterizes Tubman as a humanitarian. Humanitarian, hero and terrorist, all in one? Is such a thing possible?

We find ourselves at a crossroads. Condemnations this past week have been raining down on WikiLeaks following the media organization’s release of more than a quarter-million diplomatic cables. The cables, which provide revelations about the U.S. government’s impressions of numerous world leaders, are embarrassing, yes. But the government says their release also threatens national security.

Now the T-word has surfaced.

One of the problems involves perspective. In post 9/11 America, the very word has taken on new meaning. Once upon a time, it carried a very specific connotation — a kind of scatter-shot violence carried out especially against noncombatant targets.

But now, more and more, it seems to mean simply “people who oppose us.”

Here lies both the power and peril of language. Words grow increasingly elastic. They stretch and expand to cover every need. That makes them ever more convenient, but in the process, they also sag and droop. They lose their grip, their meaning.

So who are we calling a terrorist these days? This is about more than just the fate of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is already being sought by authorities in Sweden to answer accusations of rape and sexual harassment — real terror, from my point of view.

It is also about our understanding of acceptable human behavior. We live, after all, in a world where, even among the “good guys,” violence tends to be a tool of first resort. Such a world demands a delicate balancing act.

Who are the terrorists? And where does terrorism begin?

Source: Clayton Hardiman, “Do We See Terrorists in the Mirror?” Muskegon Chronicle [Muskegon, Mich.], 5 December 2010

Clayton Hardiman is a professional journalist as well as a published poet and writer of short fiction. A Michigan native and graduate of Western Michigan University, he was a reporter, columnist and editor at the Muskegon Chronicle for nearly 35 years. He continues to write for the newspaper on a free-lance basis and serves on its editorial board. His writing has earned numerous awards, including citations from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and the National Association of Black Journalists. His work has appeared in the Poynter Institute’s “Best Newspaper Writing,” an anthology of outstanding writing from daily newspapers across the United States. Hardiman is the father of three and grandfather of seven. He and his wife, Emmajean, live in Muskegon, where he is currently working on a novel. Tweet: www.twitter/MuskegonChron

In Years Past: 1910

The year 1910 marked the 51^st year after John Brown’s raid.  Although a half-century is a life time, there were still a good many people alive at that time who were children or young adults at the time of John Brown’s raid.  Despite its flaws and biases, the biography of Brown by Oswald Garrison Villard, which was published in 1910, was fortuitous for our study beyond the intention of the author because the research behind it far exceeded Villard's use.  It has thus proven a great resource for a number of biographers subsequently, including yours truly.  Many readers know that Villard, the son of magnate Henry Villard, was also the grandson of William Lloyd Garrison (his mother was Frances Garrison).  Villard, a graduate of Harvard University and the heir to his father’s ownership of two prominent publications, The New York Evening Post and The Nation, was determined to prepare a scholarly work on Brown in commemoration of the half-century mark since the Harper’s Ferry raid. 

Oswald Garrison Villard (Library of Congress) -
His bio is a better resource book than an interpretation

In 1909, while Villard was preparing his book, W. E. B. DuBois, the eminent black scholar (and also Harvard graduate) published his book on John Brown in the 50^th year after the raid, thus crossing the finish line before Villard. Although the biographers were associates in the early civil rights movement, Villard used his newspaper connections to harshly review the DuBois biography.  The latter protested, but his demands for an opportunity to respond were met with condescending rejection.  In turn, Villard’s book was published the following year to great success.  The story behind the DuBois-Villard friendship/falling out is a fascinating chapter for a number of reasons, but it certainly touches the theme of white liberal racism as well as professional and ideological bias.  (Readers with an interest in this theme may wish to check out my chapter in The Afterlife of John Brown (Palgrave Macmillan.)

W. E. B. DuBois, Biographer
of John Brown (National Park
Service) - despite its flaws,
his bio of Brown remains in print 
as a classic interpretation

Villard’s biography of Brown was premised on the claim of being an objective, factual work.  Of course, in many respects it was a thoroughly researched and "definitive" work for a new century.  On the other hand, despite his lofty claim to objectivity, Villard seems to have had two unacknowledged motivations in writing his book.  First, as the proud grandson of William Lloyd Garrison, he intended to revise the older, heroic view of Brown by painting a sympathetic but diminished treatment of the man.  Although he could not entirely compensate for the “stolen thunder” his grandfather Garrison had lost after Brown's famous martyrdom, it must have given him some satisfaction to publicly disqualify Brown from historical sainthood based upon his version of the Pottawatomie killings.  In private communication Villard gloated that at least his grandfather had not “murdered” people.  He also took out his extreme pacifist resentments upon Brown, whose use of force in any sense rendered him guilty in Villard's eyes.  In fact, he actually was an extreme pacifist, not just a non-resistant in political terms; his bias in this regard definitely shaped how he viewed John Brown. Villard could not have written his book had he not been wealthy and privileged to some degree.  Yet despite the fact that his work reflects a measure of snobbery and entitlement, the fact that he could afford to do the research has served later generations well.  It is also a point of criticism of Villard that he lambasted DuBois for using hackneyed, older sources in his John Brown 1909 biography.  DuBois was an activist and educator, not a wealthy, privileged white liberal, and he did not have the time or resources that Villard possessed.  Fortunately, history has proven more kindly to the DuBois biography, which continues to be published and read in new editions.  DuBois outlived Villard, and must have taken great comfort in seeing a 1962 edition of his biography published in honor of the Emancipation Proclamation centennial.  In contrast, the Villard biography has not enjoyed wide readership and is known mainly by students and scholars despite its largely negative impact upon later writing on Brown in the 20th century.

Katherine Mayo (in later

life) - her research on

Brown is memorable

More importantly, however, Villard had a very effective researcher (and upcoming writer) in the person of Katherine Mayo.  In 1908-09, Mayo scoured the country looking for John Brown letters, doing primary and secondary level interviews, transcribing holographs, collecting articles, and otherwise building a body of research material unprecedented in any work on Brown.  Notably, Mayo interviewed Brown’s surviving children, old Kansas settlers, and others whose voices might have been lost had it not been for her strenuous efforts to make a substantial record of their words.  Mayo is thus the unsung hero on the positive side of the Villard story: her extensive research, meticulous transcriptions, and exhaustive documentation provided Villard with great scholarly substance.  When I worked in the Villard papers a decade ago, I recall looking through a series of little memorandum/date books.  As I leafed through them, I realized that these were how Mayo constructed the first (partial) chronology of Brown (1855-59), included as flanking material in Villard’s book.  Mayo was not only a researcher, but published a number of articles on Brown at the time, thus cutting her teeth as a professional writer.  Her research—substantially representing most of what is entailed in the Columbia University John Brown-Oswald Garrison Villard Collection—remains a wonderful resource for researchers, following the great archives of the state of West Virginia and the Hudson (Ohio) Library and Historical Society which hold the papers of Boyd B. Stutler and Clarence S. Gee, respectively, as well as the archives of the Kansas State Historical Society.

Truly, the Villard project is a substantial link in the chain of John Brown historiography, and the link between 19^th century writers and the monumental documentary research of Boyd B. Stutler, who carried the baton into the later 20^th century.  In fact, Stutler became such an aficionado on John Brown that by the 1940s, he even helped Villard revise and correct his biography for a later edition.  From the work of Gee and Stutler (which had wound down by 1970), we then have Jean Libby, Palo Alto, Calif. in the field doing research on Brown’s raid and black involvement in Jefferson County in the later 1970s and onward.  Worthy mention should also be made of the extensive work on Brown’s raiders by N. Scott Wolfe, Galena, Ill.  Libby has since prepared the first and most extensive documentation on the photographic images of Brown. --LD [revised]

Another moment in 1910. . .

William H. Hickman (d. 1928)
Methodist minister,  Civil War
Veteran, and Chancellor of
DePauw University
Indiana GenWeb Project

"December 2 marked the 51st anniversary of the execution of John Brown at Charlestown, Virginia. In commemoration of the event, Rev. Dr. William H. Hickman of Pennville, Indiana gave a lecture in the First Congregational Church of Jamestown on John Brown as the John the Baptist of the Civil War--a lecture which was a masterpiece of its class and the equal of which had seldom if ever been heard from a Jamestown platform. While the audience was being seated, Miss Anna Knowlton played a selection on the organ, peculiarly appropriate to a gathering of this character in that it was an arrangement of patriotic airs."

Source: “In Past Years.”  The Post-Journal [Jamestown, N.Y.], 4 December 2010

Jean Libby Writes-

Mary Brown's Ordeal Remembered

Retracing the trail of John Brown's
funeral cortege, December 1859

The story of Mary Brown's journey to see her husband on the day before his execution in Virginia (December 2, 1859) and bring his body home to the Adirondack Mountains of New York is often told but seldom documented. At the 150th anniversary of the John Brown raid in 2009, a lovely self-guided tour, On the Trail of John Brown: What Mary Brown Saw, was published in a pamphlet and online (pdf) by the Essex County Historical Society and Adirondack Architectural Heritage.

On the Trail of John Brown is based upon what Mary Brown saw as the funeral cortege of her husband, John Brown the abolitionist, traveled from the train depot in Vergennes, Vermont to the family farm in North Elba, New York. We will look at the buildings that still exist along the route of the funeral cortege and describe the landscapes that they would have passed over. Of particular note are the sites relevant to the life of John Brown, the anti-slavery movement, and/or sites mentioned by members of the funeral cortege in 1859. It took two days for the cortege to travel this relatively short distance [67 miles], leaving the train depot early Tuesday morning, December 6, and arriving in North Elba on Wednesday evening, December 7, 1859.

Mary was at the exhaustive conclusion of traveling since hearing the news of John Brown's sentence of death on November 1, 1859. Moving southward through Boston and Brooklyn escorted by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the party was stopped in Baltimore and subjected to considerable hostility. Mary retreated to Philadelphia, staying at the home of William Still, the African American often called the father of the Underground Railroad. John Brown learned of the failure of her mission from his attorney, George Hoyt, and wrote to her from prison in Charlestown on November 10, pleading that she not come but wait until "after Virginia has applied to the picture already made of me ... [if] you can afford to meet the expence and trouble of coming on here to gather up the bones of our beloved sons & your husband, and if the people here will suffer you to do so; I should be entirely willing." The full letter is published from a typescript in the Oswald Garrison Villard Collection by Louis A. DeCaro, Jr., in John Brown, the Cost of Freedom: Selections from his Life and Letters (International Publishers: 2007:149-151).

Mary Brown, from a family
portrait, early 1850s

Mary wrote to Governor Henry A. Wise to claim the bodies on November 21, receiving his affirmative response on November 27. The two original letters were in the possession of her only surviving son, Salmon, until 1893, when they were acquired by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP). Languishing there with many other original documents which were used in John Brown's trial, the exchange was published by HSP in 2009.

By Thanksgiving, Mary had received the consent of John Brown to visit him while still alive, and prepared for the journey at the home of Lucretia Mott in Philadelphia. At services presided by Rev. William Furness, she received the warm support of women in the congregation and traveled to Harpers Ferry with Mr. and Mrs. J. Miller McKim and Hector Tyndale as escort. The party was met by William Taliaferro, who was in charge of the martial law order in Charlestown. Her request to receive the bodies of Oliver and Watson was refused, but Mary was allowed to come along to the prison for a last meeting with her husband on December 1.

Collegial sharing of a scanned copy of The New York Daily Tribune of December 3, 1859 by Karl Gridley of Kansas allowed me to transcribe the interview with Mary Brown published on that day, which is published online.

A new collegial sharing is occurring in December 2010, with the December 3, 1859 account of Mary Brown's experience in Harpers Ferry through the execution and accompanying his coffin forwarded to Philadelphia in the National Anti-Slavery Standard, written by J. Miller McKim. Thanks to Warren F. Broderick, an historian in New York, I will be able to transcribe this document and put it online with her interview for use by everyone.

Jean Libby, Allies for Freedom, Palo Alto, California (3 December 2010)

John Brown (May 9, 1800 - December 2, 1859)

I N   R E M E M B R A N C E

"Today is my last day upon Earth.  Tomorrow I shall see God.  I have no fear, I am not afraid to die.  And I can say the words of our blessed Saviour: 'Father, forgive them: they know not what they do. . . .'"

John Brown, letter fragment, December 1, 1859

Abraham Lincoln, John Brown and Two Artists Named Hunt

I have been doing some basic research on two U.S. artists named Hunt, William Morris Hunt and Albert Hunt, and I’m looking for more information, especially on the latter.

William Morris Hunt

William Morris Hunt

I’ve done some preliminary reading on William Morris Hunt (1824-79), a Vermont-born artist who was heavily influenced by the Barbizon School of painting in France.  I understand that this was a pre-Impressionist style, and Hunt introduced it to New England after returning from France in 1855.  He lived in Newport, Rhode Island until 1862, when he moved to Boston, Massachusetts.   Hunt did a painting of Abraham Lincoln in 1865. For a good biographical sketch of Hunt, see Lonnie Pierson Dunbier's article at AskArt.com.

Hunt's Lincoln (1865)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Artists and art history folks will hopefully forgive me for not primarily focusing on this artist’s work.  My interest in him is based on a brief excerpt in an article “Records of W. M. Hunt” by Henry C. Angell, which was published in The Atlantic Monthly in May 1880.  It seems that Hunt had unfortunately committed suicide the previous year, and Angell published two articles about his life.  What got my attention was Angell’s recollection:

"Mr. Hunt had two long interviews with John Brown, and was greatly impressed by him.  He was a marvelous person; a great hero, like one of the old prophets, he said.  He made arrangements to paint his portrait, but meantime Brown went suddenly to his death in Virginia" (p. 663).

 This is not something that I’ve ever read about, but one could speculate that these “two long interviews” probably took place during Brown’s visits to New England in the last two years of his life.  We often hear of Brown having met with New England’s literati, and so it should not surprise us that other leading cultural figures at the time met and spoke to him.  Although Hunt could have met Brown in Boston, it is interesting that during Brown’s days as a public figure, Hunt was living in Rhode Island, where Brown had at least one good connection, the abolitionist entrepreneur, Edward Harris, who sent money to Brown’s family prior to the hanging in Virginia.  Whatever the case, it’s too bad that Angell did not write at greater length about this, although someone may want to look into Hunt’s papers to find out if more information exists about his “interviews” with Old Brown.  Hunt’s conclusion, that Brown was a “great hero” and a figure like the biblical prophets, was not unusual.  But it is fascinating to learn that Hunt wished to do Brown’s portrait.  Too bad that he never succeeded in doing so.  The last phrase about Brown going “suddenly to his death” probably means that the shocking Harper’s Ferry raid obviously ruined Hunt's plan to produce an artistic portrait of the Old Man.

Albert Hunt

The hunt for Albert Hunt (1826-98) has been considerably less successful, although he is just as interesting, if not more so.  All that I can find is that Albert Hunt was a Methodist clergyman and a skilled charcoal sketch artist, and he is remembered only for his famous sketch of President Abraham Lincoln, made in 1865.  Thus far, I have found a number of references to the Methodist minister named Albert Sanford Hunt, a New York clergyman, a bachelor, and an alumnus of Roberts Wesleyan College.  This is probably the same Albert Hunt who sketched President Lincoln in life, at City Point, Va., on March 27, 1865.  It seems that Hunt knew General Ulysses S. Grant and was present at Grant’s headquarters when Lincoln visited.  His sketch of Lincoln is said to be the best “in life” rendering of Old Abe, and you can purchase it on-line from the Abraham Lincoln Bookshop for $125,000.  Interestingly, the Rev. Albert S. Hunt’s sermon in memory of the assassinated president is included in an 1865 publication, Our Martyr President, Abraham Lincoln: Voices from the Pulpit of New York and Brooklyn.

Albert Hunt's "from life" sketch
of Lincoln, March 1865

Thus far, I have not found anything that precisely connects the Rev. Albert S. Hunt to the Rev. Albert Hunt, sketch artist of Lincoln in 1865, even though it seems obvious that the two are one and the same.  Still, I’d prefer to get conclusive proof.  Besides, with all due respect to Lincoln, I’ve got bigger fish to fry insofar as Hunt the sketch artist likewise is connected to a rendering of John Brown.  Indeed, whereas the painter William M. Hunt planned on executing a portrait of Brown but never did so, it seems the charcoal sketch artist Albert Hunt actually completed a sketch of the Old Man, specifically portraying him seated in his jail cell in Charlestown. 

Albert Hunt's sketch of Brown in jail
published only once in 1909

To my knowledge, Albert Hunt’s sketch of Brown has only been published once, 101 years ago in an article by Eleanor Atkinson for The American Magazine, including the cutline that reads, “A sketch from life by Albert Hunt.”  First, I would like to locate this sketch if is extant.  If Atkinson used it for her article in 1909, it hopefully was accessible to her through Hunt’s papers.  If it was in the hands of a private collector, it may be as good as lost.  Second, I would like to investigate the notion that Hunt made the sketch “from life” as he did in the case of Lincoln.  I am more than inclined to doubt that this is actually a "from life" sketch, and presume it was the assumption of the magazine editor.  To be sure, in both the Lincoln and Brown sketches by Hunt, the artist’s eye for detail is evident.  In the 1865 Lincoln sketch, Hunt captures a snapshot image, including the pages of  The Richmond Dispatch over Abe's long, crossed legs, along with his bag and shawl behind him.  In Hunt’s Brown sketch, there is similar detail: Brown is also seated, and behind his chair there appears to be a pitcher and washbowl, along with the barred window of the cell behind him.   In contrast to Lincoln’s newspaper, Brown holds a Bible on his lap, and his head is bandaged in keeping with the wounds he sustained when at least two marines assaulted him in the armory engine house at Harper's Ferry.

There are a number of reasons to doubt that Hunt’s Brown sketch was made “from life.”  First, although he had many guests in his jail cell, there is no reference that Hunt ever visited Brown or that such a portrait was made.  Furthermore, we know of the sculptor Edward A. Brackett’s somewhat dangerous visit to Charlestown during Brown’s incarceration, and that he was not permitted to enter the jail in order to expedite the prerequisites for the sculpture.  Indeed, Brackett had to connive even to get within adequate distance of Brown in the jail house, and had to rely on someone else to take the necessary measurements--the whole time being suspected as an “abolitionist spy.”  Had Hunt made such a venture, it would probably have yielded similar results and certainly would have been on record in some later newspaper interview or article.  

Finally, the details of his sketch, though basically realistic, are inexact and seem more in keeping with a work done from the artist’s studied imagination.  Brown’s beard is far too long, especially since it was cropped fairly short at the time of the raid—and since he is also wearing a bandage, which would date a sketch "from life" as having been done fairly early in November, when Brown's wounds were still fresh.  Furthermore, the bandage itself is wrapped around his head, rather than atop his head where he sustained a deep wound.  


As of yet, I have no date for Hunt’s Brown sketch, but obviously it was done after some details of Brown’s incarceration were made known in books and newspapers.  If possible, readers are solicited to contribute more information; I hope to update you on further developments, particularly relating to Albert Hunt's work on Brown.

A   M O M E N T   I N   T I M E
150 YEARS AGO TODAY

John Brown, a prisoner awaiting execution in Charlestown, [West] Virginia, wrote two letters from his jail cell. The first was written to Rebecca Buffum Spring, the kindly if not eccentric abolitionist who visited Brown in his jail cell, accompanied by her son, a few weeks before (Nov. 6). Spring was not the only abolitionist woman to express interest in helping the incarcerated Old Man. Lydia Maria Child wrote to Brown in jail on October 26, 1859, expressing her desire to come and “nurse” him and “speak to you sisterly words of sympathy and consolation,” but then so involved herself in extensive polemics with Virginia’s Governor Wise and his wife that she evidently decided not to actually come to Virginia to “nurse” Brown after all. Child did not know Brown but her husband had earlier corresponded with Brown while the latter was endeavoring to raise support for the free state cause in Kansas. Lydia Child was undoubtedly sincere in her original intention of coming to Brown’s aid, but like so many abolitionists (and like so many of us!), she tended to talk more than take action. It seems that appropriating Brown’s circumstances as an abolitionist platform from which to send forth dignified abolitionist missiles at Virginia’s first family was more important to Child than was actually risking her own safety to stand with Brown in his hour of crisis.

Artist: Jacob Lawrence, "The Legend
of John Brown" Series

Quite differently, Rebecca Buffum Spring, the scion of the beloved New England abolitionist Arnold Buffum (and sibling of Elizabeth Buffum Chace, a noteworthy abolitionist in her own right), had as much pluck as pen. When she heard of Brown’s failure at Harper’s Ferry, she determined to go to his aid, departing from her residence in New Jersey, along with her young son, Edward. Upon arriving (via Baltimore), she learned that Lydia Maria Child had not come to Virginia after all. Utilizing some connections she had through her Quaker background, Spring was eventually able to reach Charlestown and spent a day at Brown’s side. It was a brave and dangerous effort, considering the almost frenzied paranoia of whites in Jefferson County at the time, and the possibility that she could be mistaken for Child, whose correspondence was publicized enough to make her thoroughly hated in the South and lionized in the North among abolitionists. In the aftermath of Brown’s death on December 2, Spring sustained a warm correspondence with Aaron Stevens and Albert Hazlett (who was going by the name of Harrison in the hopes of saving his life by denying his association with the raiders—which is also why Brown did not bid him farewell before going to the gallows).

The following letter, written 151 years ago today by Brown to Rebecca Buffum Spring is accessible to us only through the transcription of Franklin Sanborn, who included it in his Life and Letters (pp. 599-601). Unfortunately, like all of Sanborn’s transcriptions, this transcription is purged of its “Brownesque” style: the inevitable use of the ampersand (&) in place of “and” (in the overwhelming number of Brown’s extant letters, “and” rarely appears), the typical peppering of misplaced, interruptive semi-colons, and the frequent use of underlining. James Redpath features only an excerpt from this letter on page 360 of his authorized biography, The Public Life of Captain John Brown (1860), and although he likewise edits Brown’s style somewhat, at least he retained some of Brown’s underlining, which he conveys in italics on page 360. (I should add that on November 24, Brown also wrote to his young attorney, George B. Hoyt, but time does not permit to describe this letter in more detail except to say that, to my knowledge, it survives only in transcription.) Thus, I have culled some of the original features of Brown’s letter from Redpath’s transcription, combining them with my (reasonably imagined) transcription of the full letter from Sanborn’s book, to wit:

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va, 24 Nov. 1859.

My Dear Mrs Spring,

Your ever welcome letter of the 19th inst., together with the one now enclosed, were received by me last night too late for any reply. I am always grateful for anything you either do or write. I would most gladly express my gratitude to you & yours by something more than words; but it has come to that, I now have but little else to deal in, & sometimes they are not so kind as they should be. You have laid me & my family under many & great obligations. I hope they may not soon be forgotten. The same is also true of a vast many others, that I shall never be able even to thank. I feel disposed to leave the education of my dear children to their mother, & to those dear friends who bear the burden of it; only expressing my earnest hope that they may all be come strong, intelligent, expert, industrious, Christian housekeepers. I would wish that, together with other studies, they may thoroughly study Dr. Franklin's "Poor Richard." I want them to become matter of fact women. Perhaps I have said too much about this already; I would not allude to this subject now but for the fact that you had most kindly expressed your generous feelings with regard to it.

I sent the letter to my wife to your care, because the address she sent me from Philadelphia was not sufficiently plain, left me quite at a loss. I am still in the same predicament, & were I not ashamed to trouble you further, would ask you either to send this to her or a copy of it, in order that she may see something from me often.

I have had very many interesting visits from pro-slavery persons almost daily, & I endeavor to improve them faithfully, plainly, & kindly. I do not think that I ever enjoyed life better than since my confinement here. For this I am indebted to Infinite Grace, & the kind letters of friends from different quarters. I wish I could only know that all my poor family were as much composed & as happy as I. I think that nothing but the Christian religion can ever make any one so much composed.

"My willing soul would stay In such a frame as this."

There are objections to my writing many things while here that I might be disposed to write were I under different circumstances. I do not know that my wife yet understands that prison rules require that all I write or receive should first be examined by the sheriff or State's attorney, & that all company I see should be attended by the jailer or some of his assistants. Yet such is the case; & did she know this, it might influence her mind somewhat about the opportunity she would have on coming here. We cannot expect the jailer to devote very much time to us, as he has now a very hard task on his hands. I have just learned how to send letters to my wife near Philadelphia.

I have a son at Akron, Ohio, that I greatly desire to have located in such a neighborhood as yours; & you will pardon me for giving you some account of him, making all needful allowance for the source the account comes from. His name is Jason; he is about thirty-six years old; has a wife & one little boy. He is a very laborious, ingenious, temperate, honest, & truthful man. He is very expert as a gardener, vine-dresser, & manager of fruit-trees, but does not pride himself on account of his skill in any thing; always has underrated himself; is bashful & retiring in his habits; is not (like his father) too much inclined to assume & dictate; is too conscientious in his dealings & too tender of people's feelings to get from them his just deserts, & is very poor. He suffered almost everything on the way to & while in Kansas but death, & returned to Ohio not a spoiled but next to a ruined man. He never quarrels, & yet I know that he is both morally & physically brave. He will not deny his principles to save his life, & he "turned not back in the day of battle." At the battle of Osawatomie he fought by my side. He is a most tender, loving, & steadfast friend, & on the right side of things in general, a practical Samaritan (if not Christian); & could I know that he was located with a population who were disposed to encourage him, without expecting him to pay too dearly in the end for it, I should feel greatly relieved. His wife is a very neat, industrious, prudent woman, who has undergone a severe trial in " the school of affliction."

You make one request of me that I shall not be able to comply with. Am sorry that I cannot at least explain. Your own account of my plans is very well. The son I mentioned has now a small stock of choice vines & fruit-trees, & in them consists his worldly store mostly. I would give you some account of others, but I suppose my wife may have done so.

Your friend,

John Brown.

By way of content, this is a long letter with a lot of detail, but clearly there are three major themes: Brown’s expressions of gratitude for Spring’s intervention and assistance, a personal description of his jail house circumstances and some details of his interior life, and then a long section where he interestingly seeks assistance on behalf of his son, Jason, who was back in Ohio at this time.

As to the last segment concerning Jason, a great deal of commentary might be generated and frankly I cannot even skim the surface (because I’m supposed to be grading student papers and working on another project). Jason was always the “odd” Brown boy in his extremely passive, gentle, and benign manner. As his father rightly describes him, Jason tended toward self-deprecation, although on principle he was able to muster greater courage and fearlessness in the famous battle of Osawatomie, Kansas Territory, back in 1856. Notably, however, he had not mustered such courage in the case of the Pottawatomie killings and refused to support the Brown’s preemptive strike. Evidently, Jason lived to regret not having gone when he came to understand the full reasons for his father’s decision to expedite these killings. Although not having participated in the Pottawatomie killings probably saved his life at the hands of pro-slavery thugs, he and his wife sustained great losses in the whole Kansas episode. They not only lost their young son Austin en route to the territory in 1855, but their Kansas dwelling was burned by terrorists (and with it, no doubt, a good portion of Brown’s correspondence). At any rate, the Spring family evidently offered Jason aid and support following his father’s hanging in 1859, and he gratefully corresponded with Rebecca Spring at least twice that can be documented (see Villard Papers).

As to the portion regarding his daughters’ education, Brown was no sexist as much as he was practical. He writes above that he wants his “children” to become “strong, intelligent, expert, industrious, Christian housekeepers,” no doubt imbued as much with the spiritual wisdom of the Bible as with the practical wisdom of Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac, both of which had been staples of Brown family reading from his earliest Ohio days. His desire that his youngest daughters (Anne, Sarah, and young Ellen) would be “matter of fact women” was no less than what he had demanded of his sons, all of which were likewise trained to “music of the broom,” as he put it in his letter of November 16th to his wife, where he likewise extolled upon the theme of being “plain but practical.” Certainly there was no one more plain and practical than John Brown, and this is something that he wanted for all of his children—no doubt anticipating that his family would never be rich in the manner of this world, given their philosophy and values of service and sacrifice, and his refusal to pursue profit for profit’s sake. “When I say plain but practical,” Brown wrote to his wife, “I mean enough of the learning of the schools to enable them to transact the common business of life, comfortably and respectably. . . which prepares both men and women to be useful though poor, and to meet the stern Realities of life with a good Grace.”

A final note regards Brown’s evident Christian convictions. He not only emphasizes his hope that his children will become “Christian housekeepers,” but also opines: “nothing but the Christian religion can ever make any one so much composed.” An extended essay might be written on the flagrantly evangelical and evangelistic tenor of Brown’s final letters to his family and others. Contrary to the popular notion that he “reinvented himself” in the Charlestown jail, Brown’s saintly, “biblio-centric” epistles actually were quite consistent with his lifetime devotion to the classical Protestant evangelical faith. Yet his inability to take further action, along with his proximity to death, now brought his spiritual focus to the center, just as his personal concern for his children’s eternal state was only heightened in the shadow of the gallows.

The fact that most of his adult children had rejected evangelical faith from the early 1850s was a galling issue for Brown, and this seems to be the point of Browns’ reference to Jason as a “practical Samaritan (if not a Christian).” Like his brothers John Junior, Owen, and their younger half-brothers, Jason Brown was quite heterodox as far as his father was concerned. So expansive was the spiritual rebellion of the Brown children that Anne Brown, while her father was in jail awaiting execution, wrote to her father’s supporter, Thomas W. Higginson on November 29, 1859, expressing regret that she could not become a Christian in satisfaction of her father’s urgings (Higginson papers, Boston Public Library). In fact, to my knowledge, only two of Brown’s daughters followed their father in faith: Ruth Brown Thompson (Dianthe’s daughter) and Sarah Brown (Mary’s daughter). I don’t know about Ellen, for whom Brown inscribed a new Bible in April 1857.

Lastly, Brown includes a verse that Rebecca Spring would have probably recognized, as would most people in that largely Protestant-oriented time and culture: “"My willing soul would stay In such a frame as this." This is a portion of a verse from the hymn by Isaac Watts entitled, "Welcome Sweet Day of Rest" (1707). He evidently assumed that Spring could complete the stanza, which goes, “And sit and sing herself away to everlasting bliss.” This was quite in keeping with Brown’s peaceful interior life, which by all accounts was quite authentic, and certainly no pretense. “I do not think that I ever enjoyed life better than since my confinement here,” He wrote to Friend Rebecca. He had finally attained the goal of his life, despite the fact that it was not the outcome for which he had first planned. But now he was finally working to the detriment of slavery to good effect, and in his death he would seal the work for time and eternity. John Brown’s willing soul would stay in the frame of Charlestown jail, even as he walked the fine line between the temporal and the eternal, between the trials of this present age and the bliss of the age to come.

===========
100 years ago today, 1910
Charleston, W.Va. -- The last of those who took part in the execution of John Brown died here at the age of 83. He was Louis P. Starry, the undertaker who made the coffin in which Brown's body was placed. Mr. Starry rode in the wagon with Brown from the jail to the scaffold and delivered the body afterward at Harper's Ferry to Mrs. Brown and Dr. McKim.

Source: "Out of Our Past." The Battle Creek Inquirer [Battle Creek, Mich.], 24 Nov. 2010   

My "Answer.com" Why was john brown guilty of treason and was his reason valid?

Brown on trial, painting by David C Lithgow,
Essex County Historical Society,
Elizabethtown, N.Y.

Certainly John Brown was found guilty of treason by the State of Virginia. The legal rationale behind this charge was that even though Brown was not a Virginian, he could be guilty of treason because he had previously enjoyed the privileges and freedoms offered him by the state. So, as a U.S. citizen, he had an equal loyalty to the states of the union individually. Students are advised to read Brian McGinty's book, JOHN BROWN'S TRIAL. Of course, this argument is debatable and certainly was convenient to the pro-slavery side of the case. But there was some precedent in the U.S. constitution for this charge. A related issue is that John Brown invaded a federal facility on federal grounds in Virginia, and yet the President of the U.S. let Virginia prosecute Brown without involving federal jurisdiction. There were certainly politically pro-slavery reasons for this strategy. 

Not clear about the second part of the question, "was his reason valid?" If the question actually was supposed to mean, "was this reason valid?" then perhaps what has been discussed so far should suffice in basic terms. Once again, students should read the McGinty book, which is the first extended study about Brown's trial and will probably be the definitive work for a long time. 

But if the second part of the question pertains to John Brown's reasons for invading Virginia, then of course there is room for more discussion and debate. 

To start with, a purely legalistic and typically conservative reading would conclude that Brown was wrong. People arguing from this position would say that laws are laws, and we are a nation of laws, and that violating the rule of law destroys the essence of the nation--therefore Brown must be judged first and last a criminal. But this view tends to be amoral, it is indifferent to human reality as well as the centrality of moral convictions, especially in a society like the U.S. whose founders made appeals to philosophy, politics, and theology. 

Thus, if one puts laws above everything else, then any law that is passed remains sacrosanct, no matter how wrong or bad it is. This locks humans into a position of obeying laws put into place by unjust or immoral leaders, as has often happened in human history. 

We must remember that in 1859, the law of the U.S. was in favor of chattel slavery. Most people today would find such a rule of law unconscionable: black people were not viewed as full humans, their bodies, families, labor, and self-determination were controlled by slave masters, the market, and the federal government. Slavery presumed stolen labor, the use of terror and violence to sustain slavery, and essentially required the entire nation to cooperate, free states included. The Fugitive Slave Laws, especially the one passed in 1850, made free states responsible for slavery to continue. So we have to let go the romanticized, sentimental view of "American history" and realize that our nation was a kind of fascist state as far as black people were concerned. 

In light of the totality of slavery's corruption and violation of human rights (not to mention how it contradicted the very premise of the nation's founders--something that John Brown believed), simply arguing that "breaking the law makes John Brown wrong" is not so persuasive. 

John Brown was trying to do something--actually do something--when the issue of slavery was still a matter of political compromise, give-and-take between white politicians in the North and South. Even Lincoln was willing to tolerate a limited slavery as long as it didn't spread to new territories. 

John Brown did not want to kill slaveholders; he believed some measure of force would be necessary given the violence upon which slavery was founded. But his goal was to somewhat arm the underground railroad--it put the underground railroad idea more on the offensive and give it a measure of force. His goal was to panic and destroy the slave economy without broad scale bloodshed. 

Lastly, if people are going to hold Brown to the very narrow view that "breaking the law" makes him a bad man, then they at least had better be consistent in their historical view of everyone else. By this reasoning, anyone who breaks laws is wrong, no matter what the circumstances. Of course, no one would hold to such a ludicrous position, particularly when a particular law touches their concerns in a negative fashion. If nothing else, John Brown was being consistently "American" by appealing to the higher moral and ethical arguments for black freedom based upon the precedent set by the founders. He consciously argued along these lines (i.e., that the real intention of the founders had been co-opted by slave holders); nor was he trying to overthrow the political structure of the U.S., except as it pertained to slavery. 

Seen through the narrow, legalistic lens of the conservative, Brown is a lawbreaker and nothing more. But seen through a full scope that appreciates law but also closely examines political realities, moral arguments, and the real facts of John Brown's case, the weight of history's judgment will probably prove to be in Brown's favor. That he broke the laws of a nation committed to cruel, racist slavery actually is quite refreshing when we consider that most whites did nothing at all. Even Lincoln the lawyer defended the rights of slave holders, and as a new president, he was willing to compromise with slave masters in order to save the Union (which was always more important to Lincoln, even before he was the president). People who argue against Brown tend to overlook or even ignore the evil of slavery, and they seem to presume that life in the U.S. in 1859 was essentially fair and balanced. This is very problematic and it may also suggest a measure of hidden prejudice. In fact, the reason that Brown is probably as unpopular as he is among a segment of people in this nation is more a fact of longstanding prejudices and bigotry than about legality, "treason," or even political radicalism. [Submitted 22 Nov. 2010--LD]