1918 KANSAS AND KANSANS | Chapter 30 | Part 1 |
EARLY LIFE
John Brown was born May 9, 1800, at Torrington, Litchfield County, Connecticut. He was the son of Owen and Ruth (Mills) Brown. John Brown believed that his great-grandfather, Peter Brown, came over in the Mayflower. The later writers deny that Peter Brown was one of the Pilgrim Fathers. But the ancestry of John Brown is Puritan of the earliest New England stock and is as good as there is in America. That is conceded by all. His mother, Ruth Mills, was descended from Peter Wouter van der Muelen, of Amsterdam, Holland. His son Peter emigrated to Connecticut, settling in Windsor. The emigrant Muelen retained the old Dutch name, but his son Peter, who was born in 1666, wrote his name Peter Mills. From him descended Ruth Mills. She died while her son John was yet a child, but his recollection of her was clear, and the memory of her justice, as well as of her love, remained to him a priceless heritage. He was eight years old at the time of her death. The best account of the early life of John Brown was written by himself for a young friend, the son of George L. Stearns, of Boston, and is here given:
In 1805, Owen Brown moved to the Western Reserve, in Ohio, settling at Hudson. Owen Brown established a tannery. In this, John Brown worked as foreman, in his father's service. He had not attained his majority when he married Dianthe Lusk. Before his marriage he was following the vocations of both tanner and surveyor. He lived in his own house, having employed a housekeeper, a widow named Lusk, who brought her daughter, Dianthe, with her to this service. In 1825 John Brown moved to Pennsylvania, settling near Randolph, now Richmond. There he was postmaster for some years, and he had a large tannery. In 1835 he moved to Franklin Mills, Portage County, Ohio. At that time there was a fever of speculation over the country. John Brown invested in village lots. These proved valueless, and the venture ruined him financially. Later he was an extensive sheep farmer. This led to his becoming a member of the firm of Perkins & Brown, wool merchants, with warehouse at Springfield, Massachusetts, to which city merchants, with warehouse at Springfield, Massachusetts, to which city he moved in 1846. He became an expert grader of wool, and might have succeeded in this enterprise but for the attempt to dictate the price of wool to the New England manufacturers. This caused him to take a large cargo of wool to England, in August, 1849, which was finally sold for much less than it would have brought in Springfield. He returned, after a travel over portions of Europe, in October, 1849. His partner urged him to remain in the wool business, but he decline. It is related of Brown that an Englishman thought to test his knowledge of wool. "He very gravely drew a sample from his pocket, handed it to the Yankee farmer, and asked him what he would do with such wool as that. Brown took it, and had only to roll it between his fingers to know that it had not the minutes hooks by which the fibers of wool are attached to each other. 'Gentlemen,' said he, 'if you have any machinery in England that will work up dog's hair, I advise you to put this into it.' The jocose Briton had sheared a poodle and brought the fleece with him; but the laugh went against him when Brown handed back his precious sample."
In 1846 Gerrit Smith proposed to donate wild land in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, to such free negroes as would accept, clear, and cultivate farms there. These farms were limited to forty acres. In April, 1848, John Brown proposed to take one of the farms on which to build a home and become an example to the few negro families then there and to those who might afterwards come. Mr,. Smith was pleased to accept the offer of Brown, who before the final settlement of his wool business, removed a portion of his family to North Elba, New York, where his home always remained and where he is buried.
In October, 1854, Owen, Frederick and Salmon Brown, sons of John Brown, left Ohio for Kansas. They brought eleven head of cattle and three horses. They came by water to Chicago. At Meridosia, Illinois, they remained through the winter. Early in April they set out for Kansas, crossing the line into the Territory on the 20th day of April, 1855. On the 7th of May, Jason and John Jr., also sons of John Brown, came to Osawatomie. They left Ohio after the rivers were clear of ice. The Browns settled in Franklin County, not far west of the line between Miami and Franklin Counties.1
John Brown had early determined to wage war on slavery. His sons were imbued with this same spirit. Salmon Brown had come to Kansas only to fight slavery. Later his brother Oliver came for the same purpose, as did his father and brother-in-law, Henry Thompson. The others came for the purpose of making homes, and living in Kansas. The family of John Brown was a peculiar one. The members of it were bound to one another by very close ties, and their conduct was always the result of religious inclinations. Cholera broke out among the passengers on the boat bringing the Browns up the Missouri River. Jason's son, Austin, four years old, contracted this disease and died of it. At Waverly, Missouri, the boat was tied up to repair a broken rudder. The child was taken ashore and there buried. The repairs were made before the burial party returned. The captain, without notice to those ashore, continued his way up the Missouri, leaving the Browns to get to Kansas in the best manner they could. When they offered to purchase food at farm houses, they were repulsed, the people knowing from their speech that they were the North.
John Brown, Jr., wrote a long letter to his father on the 20th of May, 1855. He described the political conditions in the Territory. He discerned plainly the national character of the conflict in Kansas, saying, "Now Missouri is not alone in the undertaking to make this a Slave State. Every Slave-holding State from Virginia to Texas is furnishing men and money to fasten Slavery upon this glorious land by means no matter how foul." He proposed that the Free-State men should immediately thoroughly arm and organize themselves into militia companies. He affirmed that the Browns were not only anxious to prepare themselves, but that they were thoroughly determined to fight. He enumerated the arms they possessed. He also made a list of arms they needed, saying, "Now we want you to get for us these arms. We need them more than we do bread."
1 The Browns settled in Franklin County, on what came to be known as Brown's Branch, about one mile south of the point where Mount Vernon, now extinct, was afterwards laid out. The settlement of the Browns fell, when the government survey was made, within section twenty-six (26), township seventeen (17), range twenty (20). Mount Vernon was about the center of section twenty-three (23), same township and range. Orson Day, the brother-in-law of John Brown, settled about two miles west of the present town of Rantoul. He built his house on section thirty (30), township seventeen (17), range twenty-one (21). John Brown helped him to erect this house, which still exists in a fair state of preservation. Judge James Hanway lived on section four (4), township eighteen (18), range twenty-one (21). It is believed well to locate these points of interest at this time. |
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A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans , written and compiled by William E. Connelley, transcribed by Carolyn Ward, 1998.