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IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF OUR “COUSINS” …

ABOLITIONIST “FREEDOM FIGHTER” OR “TERRORIST”? (1800 – 1859)

— Bradley Rymph

John Brown was born May 9, 1800, in Brown grew up to become a radical Torrington, Connecticut. He was a great-great- abolitionist who practiced armed great-great-great-grandson of immigrant insurrection in the campaign to abolish ancestors Matthew and Priscilla (Grey) Grant slavery in the United States. He led the and a great-great-great-great-grandson of in 1856 in Bleeding immigrant ancestor Michael Humphreys and and made his name in the his wife Priscilla (Grant) Humphreys. unsuccessful raid at Harpers Ferry in 1859.

Visits to John Brown Memorial Sites: Harper’s Ferry, West : July 28, 1995 (with José Baquiran, Albert and Edna Mae Rymph) August 13, 2011 Charles Town, West Virginia: August 2, 2014

Text © 2010‒2014 by Bradley B. Rymph

“IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF OUR ANCESTORS …” HOME PAGE: http://www.bradleyrymph.com John Brown, daguerreotype, c. 1856

Illustration, page 1: “,” of John Brown by in building

In response, a group of pro-slavery Missourians crossed into Kansas. They seized two of Brown’s sons, destroyed the family homestead, and participated in the Sack of Lawrence. The pre-Civil War hostility known as “Bloody Kansas” had begun.

HOW WE’RE RELATED: John Brown

Samuel Humphrey = Mary Buell Mills ◄◄◄◄◄ (5/15/1656 – 6/15/1736) = (12/8/1662 – 1730) ▼ ▼ ▼ Samuel Humphrey = Mary Tuller Jonathan Humphrey = Mercy (Mary) Ruggles (5/17/1686 – 1759) = (11/27/1692 – c. 1714) (12/2/1608 – 6/14/1749) = (11/6/1697 – 1761) ▼ ▼ Abel Humphrey = Jemima Warner Oliver Humphrey = Sarah Garrett (3/13/1713-14 – ?) = (? – ?) (9/13/1720 – 10/30/1792) = (1/22/1723 – 11/8/1821) ▼ ▼ Ozias Humphrey = Mary Parsons Gideon Mills = Ruth Humphrey (1753 – 12/22/1826) = (c. 1756 – 2/12/1809) (10/27/1749 – 3/16/1812) = (7/28/1751 – 11/1/1822) ?▼? ▼ Ozias Humphrey = Clarissa Barber Owen Brown = Ruth Mills (c. 1779 – 11/18/1805) = (1780 – 3/18/1805) = (1/26/1772 – 12/13/1808) ?▼? ▼ Ira Walter = Mary (“Polly”) Humphrey John Brown = Dianthe Lusk (11/18/1798 – 3/10/1873) = (c. 1803 – 8/31/1851) = (1/12/1801 – 8/10/1832) ▼ Isaac E. Heath = Caroline Amelia Walter (9/4/1832 – 5/18/1912) = (10/20/1830 – 12/31/1899) ▼ = Harriet Myers (4/14/1858 – 4/26/1944) = (4/22/1858 – 7/20/1930) ▼ = Ethel Catherine Bradley (4/8/1891 – 1/28/1979) = (7/14/1891 – 7/22/1973) ▼ Albert James Rymph = Edna Mae Heath (11/9/1925 – 2/16/2019) = (living) ▼ Bradley Budd Rymph = José Verzosa Baquiran III (living) = (living)

In August 1856, a company of more than 300 preparation for the raid[see profile of Missourians entered Kansas intent on Henry Ward Beecher]. The armory was destroying the Free State settlements in the a large complex of buildings that town of Osawatomie. Although they were contained 100,000 muskets and rifles, outnumbered by more than 7 to 1, Brown which Brown planned to seize and use and his forces killed at least 20 of the to arm local slaves. They would then Missourians and wounded at least 40 more. head south, drawing off more and Brown’s men were defeated, and more slaves from plantations, and Missourians did plunder and burn fighting only in self-defense. As Osawatomie, but Brown’s military and Brown's family shrewdness made him a hero to many testified, his strategy was essentially to Northern abolitionists. deplete Virginia of its slaves, causing the institution to collapse in one By November 1856, Brown had returned to county after another, until the the East. He spent the next two years movement spread into the South, traveling New England raising funds for his essentially wreaking havoc on the cause. economic viability of the pro-slavery

states. Thus, while violence was In June 1859, Brown, his sons, and other men essential to self-defense and in their party began the move south toward advancement of the movement, Harpers Ferry, which was then part of the Brown's hope was to limit and state of Virginia. They arrived in Harpers minimize bloodshed, not ignite a slave Ferry on July 3, 1859. Brown rented a insurrection as many have charged. farmhouse in nearby Maryland to await the From the Southern point of view, of arrival of his recruits, who never materialized course, any effort to arm the enslaved in the numbers he had expected. Brown’s was perceived as a definitive threat. plan for attacking Harpers Ferry had called for 4,500 men. In the end, he had only 21 men Initially, the raid went well, and they — 16 white and 5 black, (three of whom met no resistance entering the town. were free blacks, one freed slave, and one They cut the telegraph wires and easily fugitive slave). Twelve of them had been with captured the armory, which was being Brown in Kansas raids. defended by a single watchman. They

next rounded up hostages from nearby As described in Wikipedia’s biographical farms, including Colonel Lewis profile of Brown: Washington, great-grandnephew of On October 16, 1859, Brown (leaving . They also spread three men behind as a rear guard) led the news to the local slaves that their 18 men in an attack on the Harpers liberation was at hand. Things started Ferry Armory. He had received 200 to go wrong when an eastbound Beecher's Bibles — breechloading .52 Baltimore & Ohio train approached the caliber Sharps rifles— and pikes from town. The train's baggage master tried northern abolitionist societies in to warn the passengers. Brown's men

John Brown’s Fort, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia

yelled for him to halt and then opened He had the doors and windows barred fire. The baggage master, Hayward and loopholes were cut through the Shepherd, became the first casualty of brick walls. The surrounding forces John Brown's war against slavery. barraged the engine house, and the Ironically, Shepherd was a free black men inside fired back with occasional man. Two of the hostages' slaves also fury. Brown sent his son Watson and died in the raid. For some reason, after another supporter out under a white the shooting of Shepherd, Brown flag, but the angry crowd shot them. allowed the train to continue on its Intermittent shooting then broke out, way…. and Brown's son Oliver was wounded. His son begged his father to kill him News of the raid reached Baltimore and end his suffering, but Brown said early that morning and then on to “If you must die, die like a man.” A few Washington by late morning. minutes later he was dead. The

exchanges lasted throughout the day. In the meantime, local farmers, shopkeepers, and militia pinned down By the morning of October 18 the the raiders in the armory by firing from engine house, later known as John the heights behind the town. Some of Brown's Fort, was surrounded by a the local men were shot by Brown's company of U.S. Marines under the men. At noon, a company of militia command of Colonel Robert E. Lee of seized the bridge, blocking the only the United States Army. A young Army escape route. Brown then moved his lieutenant, J.E.B. Stuart, approached prisoners and remaining raiders into under a white flag and told the raiders the engine house, a small brick that their lives would be spared if they building at the entrance to the armory. surrendered. Brown refused, saying, Top left: Wagon in which John Brown was carried to Charles Town's gallows to be hung. While being transported in the wagon, he sat on his coffin. (Exhibit in collection of Jefferson County Museum, Charles Town, West Virginia)

Center left: John Brown-related artifacts on display at Jefferson County Museum, Charles Town, including trunk owned by Brown, two pikes made by Brown for use by slaves in their uprising, desk in Charles Town jail when Brown was a prisoner there (and on which he is believed to have written his final letters), door from jail at time Brown was a prisoner there, and pine table in Jefferson County Court House at time of Brown’s trial.

Bottom left: Jefferson County Court House, Charles Town, West Virginia, in which John Brown was tried and convicted for treason, conspiracy, and murder.

Bottom right: Historical marker, commemorating the site where John Brown was hung after his conviction for treason, conspiracy, and murder.

“No, I prefer to die here.” Stuart then general and John gave a signal. The Marines used sledge Wilkes Booth, who borrowed a militia hammers and a make-shift battering- uniform to gain admission to the ram to break down the engine room execution. The poet , in door. Lieutenant “Year of Meteors,” claims to have cornered Brown and struck him several viewed the execution. times, wounding his head. In three minutes Brown and the survivors were Brown was accompanied by the sheriff captives. Altogether Brown's men and his assistants, but no minister killed four people, and wounded nine. since he had consistently rejected the Ten of Brown's men were killed ministrations of pro-slavery clergy. (including his sons Watson and Oliver). Since the region was in the grips of Five of Brown's men escaped (including virtual hysteria, most northerners, his son Owen), and seven were including journalists, were run out of captured along with Brown. town, and it is unlikely any anti-slavery clergyman would have been safe, even Brown and the others captured were held in if one were to have sought to visit the office of the armory. Brown and his men Brown. Likely drawing strength from were put on trial in Charles Town, seven miles correspondence from northern clergy, west of Harpers Ferry. The trial began he elected to receive no religious October 27. Brown was charged with services in the jail or at the scaffold. He murdering four whites and a black, with was hanged at 11:15 a.m. and conspiring with slaves to rebel, and with pronounced dead at 11:50 a.m., and treason against Virginia. his body was placed in a wooden coffin with the noose still around his neck. After a trial that lasted one week, the jury deliberated for 45 minutes. On November 2, On the day of his death he wrote “I, the Charles Town jury found Brown guilty on John Brown, am now quite certain that all three counts. Brown was sentenced to be the crimes of this guilty land will never hanged in public on December 2. be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself Wikipedia’s biographical profile describes the that without very much bloodshed it events of Brown’s final day: might be done.”

On the morning of December 2, Brown TO LEARN MORE read his Bible and wrote a final letter

to his wife, which included his will. At West Virginia Archives and History. “John 11:00 he was escorted from the county Brown and the Harpers Ferry jail through a crowd of 2,000 soldiers a Road.” (http://www.wvculture.org/History/ few blocks away to a small field where jnobrown.html) the gallows were. Among the soldiers Wikipedia. “John Brown in the crowd were future Confederate (abolitionist).” (http://en.wikipedia.org/

2014-08-03