John Brown's Hideout
inspired by John Brown the abolitionist.
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In 1857 while in Connecticut John Brown contracted a blacksmith, Charles Blair of Collinsville, for nearly 1,000 pikes. After two years Brown made his way back to Collinsville with the funds to purchase the pikes at $1 a piece.
The weapons would be shipped to a farmhouse in Maryland where Brown and his men were staging a raid on Harpers Ferry. To stay under the radar Brown went by the alias "Isaac Smith" and said he was a miner with his sons.
One notable story from history says a local resident, Henry Douglas, recalls running into "Isaac Smith" on a rainy day near Harpers Ferry. He was having trouble with his wagon on the road. The cart was carrying boxes of "mining tools" Smith said. With Douglas' help "Isaac Smith" would make his way to the Maryland farm with his crates full of pikes.
Brown would bring the crates full of pikes, Sharps rifles and other supplies with them to Harpers Ferry. Contrary to popular belief Brown brought only this wagon FULL of weapons to Harpers Ferry and no other. This flies in the face of the theory that Brown raided the armory to steal weapons. He already had plenty of weapons and even much superior fire power compared to the guns being produced at the armory.
The intent would be to arm former slaves with these weapons once they had rendezvoused outside of town. These long two edged blades affixed to a 6 foot shaft would make formidable weapons for those never trained to use a firearm. After the raid the long term plan was to live in the surrounding mountain ranges. Brown planned to have groups of men come down from the mountains and free more and more slaves. Retreating back into the mountains and sending those who did not want to fight northward along the underground railroad.
John Brown wanted to throw the entire institution of slavery into chaos and make it more of a risk. Your slaves were going to self emancipate or be freed by one of these guerrilla groups. A simple "insurrection" would of been a short sighted goal and was not John Brown's mission.
In the late 1830's / early 1840's John Brown began to raise sheep. By 1844 he was hired by Simon Perkins to tend his flock in Akron, Ohio. He would have a home on the estate where the Perkins and Brown's sheep were kept. Brown was known for his skills in raising and caring for sheep. Particularly the Merino and Saxony breeds. He would go on to become a well recognized figure in the sheep and wool industry. Winning awards and publishing multiple articles. He would continue to manage the flock of sheep for a decade up until 1854.
His daughter Ruth would reflect back on how tender hearted and caring he was. "He would very often bring in a little dead-looking lamb, and put it in warm water and rub it until it showed signs of life, and then wrap it in a warm blanket, feed it warm milk with a teaspoon, and work over it with such tenderness that in a few hours it would be capering around the room."
During this time managing the flocks and business transactions he would continue his lifelong fight against slavery. He was a well known conductor on the underground railroad in the Ohio area and used his home on multiple occasions to hide slaves heading north.
"The practical shepherd was, in fact, a double agent. His official rounds-transporting herds, meeting with associates, assessing stock and markets-gave him both occasion and cover to conduct his other business. That business was to familiarize himself with black communities in the northeast and cultivate friendships with the increasing number of outspoken blacks who in their pulpits, newspapers and antislavery congresses were beginning to advocate a more politically active and resistant abolitionism than the mainstream antislavery movement preached or favored." -Patriotic Treason; Carton: Pg. 93
On this night. At about this time. 1856. Five Proslavery settlers in Kansas Territory would be hacked to death with broadswords. The "Pottawatomie Massacre" is what it would be called. These pro-slavery men were part of a intentional effort in the area to undermine local Free-State voters and abolitionists.
The Brown family had plots of land nearby where the killings happened and were targeted for not only being abolitionists but pro-black as well. This terrorism in the territory was not uncommon and experienced by many anti-slavery settlers. Brown is said to have used his surveying skills to "run lines" through pro-slavery areas and spy on them. It is even said that this is how he confirmed that he and his family were to be "burned out and shot" by the pro-slavery terrorists flooding the area.
Theodore Weiner a European immigrant and proficient swordsman ran a store on Mosquito creek and was terrorized by the Sherman's. He was told to leave the area or die. Weiner likely either delivered or instructed how to deliver the fatal blows to the Pottawatomie victims. He was very adamant about fighting back against the pro-slavery terrorism occurring in the area.
Oliver, Owen, Watson & Frederick Brown would accompany their father, brother-in-law Henry Thompson, & neighbors James Townsley & Theodore Weiner to 3 homes along the Pottawatomie and Mosquito Creeks. By morning 5 would lay dead. William Sherman, Allen Wilkinson, James Doyle and two of his sons Drury and William. All of these men were involved in pro-slavery tactics of suppressing votes, enforcing bogus laws, and aiding terrorists. A few other men's lives at the Sherman's crossing were spared after being questioned by the party along with the youngest Doyle.
James Hanway a local settler is quoted as saying:
“I was personally acquainted with the Doyals, Wilkinsons & Sherman; and I am fully satisfied , as every body else is who lived on the Creek in '56; that a base conspiracy was on foot to drive out, burn, and kill: - in a word the Pottawatomie Creek from its mouth to its founded head was to be cleared of every man, woman, or child who was for Kansas being a free state.”
John Brown is said to have passed out knives at the Sanford Street Church "The Free Church", an all black church in Springfield, Massachusetts, after the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. One of these knives is on display at the John Brown Museum State Historic Site in Osawatomie, Kansas!
John Brown's time in Springfield in the 1840's - 1850's was deeply involved in the hotbed of anti-slavery activity. Here he would become friends with prominent black figures in the abolitionist movement. Thomas Thomas, Eli Baptist and even Frederick Douglass to name a few. He would go on to form the "League of Gileadites" which was a group prepared to resist slavery by force. The church would later go on to be named "St. John's Congregational Church".
"We were told Kansas would be defined democratically….but in fact that wasn't to be the case because the Missourians and Southerners were intent on forcing Kansas into The Union as a slave state and it meant terrorism and when they tell you John Brown was the original American terrorist you tell them
"We were told Kansas would be defined democratically….but in fact that wasn't to be the case because the Missourians and Southerners were intent on forcing Kansas into The Union as a slave state and it meant terrorism and when they tell you John Brown was the original American terrorist you tell them
"Get thee behind me Satan."
- Dr. Louis DeCaro Jr.
"Get thee behind me Satan."
- Dr. Louis DeCaro Jr.
"He done more in dying,
than 100 men would
in living."
-Harriet Tubman
"He done more in dying,
than 100 men would
in living."
-Harriet Tubman
"When John Brown stretched forth his arms the sky was cleared. The time for compromises was gone - the armed hosts of freedom stood face to face over the chasm of a broken Union - and the clash of arms was at hand. The South staked all upon getting possession of the Federal Government, and failing to do that, drew the sword of rebellion and thus made her own, and not Brown's, the lost cause of the century."
"When John Brown stretched forth his arms the sky was cleared. The time for compromises was gone - the armed hosts of freedom stood face to face over the chasm of a broken Union - and the clash of arms was at hand. The South staked all upon getting possession of the Federal Government, and failing to do that, drew the sword of rebellion and thus made her own, and not Brown's, the lost cause of the century."
-Frederick Douglass
-Frederick Douglass
Against the crime of crimes he fought and fell;
He freed a race and found a prison-cell:
In mid-air hung upon the gibbet's tree,
But lived and died, thank God, to make men free.
And dusky men the ages down will tell,
For what he fought, and how he bravely fell;
And dim the jewels in each earthly crown,
Beside the luster of thy name, John Brown.
-Joseph G. Waters
Against the crime of crimes he fought and fell;
He freed a race and found a prison-cell:
In mid-air hung upon the gibbet's tree,
But lived and died, thank God, to make men free.
And dusky men the ages down will tell,
For what he fought, and how he bravely fell;
And dim the jewels in each earthly crown,
Beside the luster of thy name, John Brown.
-Joseph G. Waters
These men are all talk; What is needed is action — action!
-John Brown
These men are all talk; What is needed is action — action!
-John Brown
"I am quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away
but with blood. I had, as I now think vainly, flattered myself
that without very much bloodshed it might be done."
"I am quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away
but with blood. I had, as I now think vainly, flattered myself
that without very much bloodshed it might be done."
-John Brown
-John Brown
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