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Note: N3493 His grandfather, John Brown, was an officer in the Revolution. John Brown was born in Connecticut but early went with his father to Ohio. His father was a contractor who supplied beef to the army there (in the war of 1812) and he had accompanied him to camp and assisted him in that employment. Captain John Brown studied for ministry but impaired eyesight changed his course. Hon. Frederick Douglass’s tribute to John Brown: "If," said he, "John Brown did not end the war that ended slavery, he at least began the war that ended slavery. If we look over the dates, places, and men for which his honor is clai med, we shall find that not Carolina but Virginia; not Fort Sumter, but Harper's Ferry and the arsenals; not Major Anderson, but John Brown, began the war that ended American slavery and made this a republic. Until this blow was struck, the prospect for freedom was dim, shadowy, and uncertain. The irrepressible conflict was one of words, votes, and compromises . When John Brown stretched forth his arm, the sky was cleared, the armed host of freedom face to face over the chasm of a broken union, and the clash of arms was at hand." Chapin Book page 1655. John Brown was a man of action -- a man who would not be deterred from his mission of abolishing slavery. On October 16, 1859, he led 21 men on a raid of the federal arsenal at Harpers F erry, Virginia. His plan to arm slaves with the weapons he and his men seized from the arsenal was thwarted, however, by local farmers, militiamen, and Marines led by Robert E. Lee . With in 36 hours of the attack, most of Brown's men had been killed or captured. John Brown was born into a deeply religious family in Torrington, Connecticut, in 1800. Led by a father who was vehemently opposed to slavery, the family moved to northern Ohio when John was five, to a district that would become known for its antislavery views. During his first fifty years, Brown moved about the country, settling in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New York, and taking along his ever-growing family. (He would father twenty children.) Working at various times as a farmer, wool merchant, tanner, and land speculator, he never was financially successful -- he even filed for bankruptcy when in his forties. His lack of funds, however, did not keep him from supporting causes he believed in. He helped finance the publication of David Walker's Appeal and Henry Highland's "Call to Rebellion" speech. He gave land to fugitive slaves . He and his wife agreed to raise a black youth as one of their own. He also participated in the Underground Railroad and, in 1851, helped establish the League of Gileadites, an organization that worked to protect escaped slaves from slave catchers. I n 1847 Frederick Douglass met Brown for the first time in Springfield, Massachusetts. Of the meeting Douglass stated that, "though a white gentleman, [Brown] is in sympathy a black man, and as deeply interested in our cause, as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron of slavery." It was at this meeting that Brown first outlined his plan to Douglass to lead a war to free slaves. Brown moved to the black community of North Elba, New York, in 1849. The community had been established thanks to the philanthropy of Gerrit Smith, who donated tracts of at least 50 acres to black families willing to clear and farm the land. Brown, knowing that many of the families were finding life in this isolated area difficult, offered to establish his own farm there as well, in order to lead the blacks by his example and to act as a "kind father to them. " Despite his contributions to the antislavery cause, Brown did not emerge as a figure of major significance until 1855 after he followed five of his sons to the Kansas territory. There, he became the leader of antislavery guerillas and fought a proslavery attack against the antislavery town of Lawrence. The following year, in retribution for another attack, Brown went to a proslavery town and brutally killed five of its settlers. Brown and his sons would continue to fight in the territory and in Missouri for the rest of the year. Brown returned to the east and began to think more seriously about his plan for a war in Virginia against slavery. He sought money to fund an "army" he would lead. On October 16, 1859, he set his plan to action when he and 21 other men -- 5 blacks and 16 whites -- raided the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. Brown was wounded and quickly captured, and moved to Charlestown, Virginia , where he was tried and convicted of treason , Before hearing his sentence, Brown was allowed make an address to the court. . . . “I believe to have interfered as I have done, . . . i n behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong , but right. Now, if it be deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children, and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel , and unjust enactments, I submit: so let it be done." Although initially shocked by Brown's exploits, many Northerners began to speak favorably o f the militant abolitionist. "He did not recognize unjust human laws, but resisted them as he was bid. . . .," said Henry David Thoreau in an address to the citizens of Concord, Massach usetts. "No man in America has ever stood up so persistently and effectively for the dignity of human nature. . . ." John Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859. John Brown's Speech to the Court at his Trial: November 2, 1859 “I have, may it please the court, a few words to say. In the first place, I deny everything but what I have all along admitted -- the design on my part to free the slaves. I intended cert ainly to have made a clean thing of that matter, as I did last winter when I went into Missou ri and there took slaves without the snapping of a gun on either side, moved them through th e country, and finally left them in Canada. I designed to have done the same thing again on a larger scale. That was all I intended. I never did intend murder, or treason, or the dest ruction of property, or to excite or incite slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection. I have another objection; and that is, it is unjust that I should suffer such a penalty. Had I interfered in the manner which I admit, and which I admit has been fairly proved (for I admire the truthfulness and candor of the greater portion of the witnesses who have testified in this case)--had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends--either father, mother, brother , sister, wife, or children, or any of that class--and suffered and sacrificed what I have in thi s interference, it would have been all right; and every man in this court would have deemed i t an act worthy of reward rather than punishment. “This court acknowledges, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament. That teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me , further, to "remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them." I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done--as I have always freely admitted I hav e done--in behalf of His despised poor was not wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments--I submit ; so let it be done! “Let me say one word further. “I feel entirely satisfied with the treatment I have received on my trial. Considering all the circumstances it has been more generous than I expected. But I feel no consciousness of guilt. I have stated that from the first what was my intention and what was not. I never had any design against the life of any person, nor any disposition to commit treason, or excite slaves to rebel, or make any general insurrection. I never encouraged any man to do so, but always discouraged any idea of that kind. “Let me say also a word in regard to the statements made by some of those connected with me . I hear it has been stated by some of them that I have induced them to join me. But the contrary is true. I do not say this to injure them, but as regretting their weakness. There is not one of them but joined me of his own accord, and the greater part of them at their own expense. A number of them I never saw, and never had a word of conversation with till the day they came to me; and that was for the purpose I have stated. “Now I have done.” John Brown was born in Torrington, CT, on May 9, 1800. In 1820 he married Dianthe Lusk, who died in 1832, during childbirth. Their marriage produced seven children: John Jr. (b. July 25, 1821); Jason (b. January 19, 1823); Owen (b. November 4, 1824); Frederick I (b. January 9, 1827, d. March 31, 1831); Ruth (b. February 18, 1829); Frederick II (b. December 21, 1830, d. August 20, 1856, at Osawatomie Kansas). In 1833, John Brown married teenager Mary Ann Day, of Meadville, PA, who bore a total of thirteen children, although only six lived to adulthood. All together, of John Brown's twenty children, only half survived their childhoods, and two more were killed during the raid on Harper's Ferry. John and Mary Ann's children were: Watson (b.?); Salmon (b. October 2, 1856); Sarah I (b. 1834, d. 1843); Charles (b. 1837, d. 1843); Oliver (b? ); Peter (b. 1840, d. 1843); Austin (b. 1842, d. 1843); Annie (b. September 23, 1843); Sarah (b. September 11, 1846); Ellen I (b.? d. 1848) Ellen II (b. September 25, 1854); Amelia (b?). The entire Brown family was involved in abolitionist work, and Brown's surviving sons were among his most trusted lieutenants. Son Frederick died during the Osawatomie raid in 1856. Jason and Salmon did not take part in the assault on Harper's Ferry; the rest of the family did.
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