The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-01-30
JOHNBROWN FOSAWATOMIE
DR.. A. w. Brayton's Address on the Life
and Work of the Great AbOlitiOniSt.
The Interesting Sketch of His Early Life
Written by the Martyr for Youthful
Acquaintance in Boston.

Df "A. w. Brayton spoke yesterday afternoon
at Plymouth Church to the boys aud girls of the
public schools on John Brown The lecture
was appropriately ushered in by singing the
grand and stirring Battle Hymn of The Republic:
Mine eyes have the glory of the coming of the
Lord:
He is rampling out the vintage where the grapes of
wrath stored
He has loosed the fateful lightning of its terrible
swift sword;
His truth is marching
The lecturer began with showing the causes
that led up to the capture of Harper's Ferry by
John Browns nineteen men and cow, and the
state of public feeling over his execution at
Charestown, Va. He showed that the Journal
and Sentinel of that period both looked upon
him as an insane man and not as we now look
upon him, an instrument in the hands of the Al
mighty. There we're a few who saw with clearer
vision. Rev. S. L. Breckenridge, pastor of The
Baptist Church, at Lafayette. the Sunday pre-
ceding Browns hanging preached about John
Brown. He prayed fervently for Brown and
preached from the texts about the righteous be-
ing bold as lion, how one should charge upon a
thousand and twopu ten thousand to fight. 1t
was black Republican sermon throughout and
a mighty appeal to the higher law of conscience
and duty. He held that calmness was out of the
question; we must agitate; and he hoped John
Brown might be hanged and so become mar
tyr He was in the same line with Victor Hugo.
Emerson and Phillips
To arouse our sympathies and interest in
Brown and get right idea Of the purpose and
motive that led to the great events of his life
the defense of Kansas against Missouri border
ruf1ians and the capture of Harper's Ferry-we
must look into his early life and ancestry-his
early life, for the man is rarely better than the
boy. Bad boys do not become good men. Men
are only boys grown tall; and hearts don't
change much after all.
We must know his ancestry because great and
good men rarely come from bad parents Blood
will tell. stream rarely rises higher than it's
fountain.
The best we know of Browns early life is taken
from letter Brown wrote to little boy of thir-
teen, Harry Stearns of Medford, Mass Brown
had just come from his Kansas campaign, De-
cember, 1856, to consult with the Massachusetts
Kansas committee in Boston. He heard Theo-
dore Parker preach in Music Hail. and spent
the Sunday following with Mrs. Stearns at Med
ford, and told the family the story of the suf-
ferings of the Kansas pioneers, who had gone
there to make themselves homes and to vote
Kansas Territory into the Union as free State.
Harry Stearns was SO deeply impressed that he
thrust his little hoard of probationary into
Browns hands, asking him to buy something
a pair of shoes or something-for one of the
little Kansas children" And then. as the old
man thanked him. Harry said: Captain Brown,
will you not write me sometime what sort of
little boy you wereP Brown promised, and after
year and half, Harry got the promised his
tory, July 10, from Red Rock Ia. This story
was carefully treasured by Harry's mother It
was read and admired by Emerson, Thoreau and
others who loved John Brown and who hated
slavery, but who did not think they were per-
soually called to take the bold stand Brown had
taken, although they trusted him and furnished
him money for his Kansas work, and ST. 900 for
his work in Virginia. With this money homes
were bought. schools, and churches. and mills
were built emlgrantS were assisted in Kansas,
and all possible done to make Kansas free
State. Well, after Brown was hanged in Vir-
GINA, this little simple history was printed in
Browns life by Mr.. James Rsdpath, reporter
for the New York Tribune who got acquainted
with Brown in Kansas. Redpath wrote a life of
Brown with this story in it, and the book was
sold to meet the wants Of Browns widow and her
family. Redpath's life of Brown is not in our
public library. John Browns name is not in the
new catalogue The new Life and Letters of
Brown" by Mr.. Sanborn, of Concord. who knew
Brown well, is there now, and is the beat account
Of him we have, as Brown and his friends tell the
story mainly by letters and documents Nor
does our library have the Harpers Weekly with
HarD6rS
Ferry, his trial and execution. But Frank
Lesle's Weekly is there with all the pictured
details, and very interesting they were to me.
can see the pictures now as though in q piano.
rama, and when shut my eyes | can see the
whole tragedy pictured out just as saw it when,
boy of ten, looked over the pictures by my
mothers side Sanborn does not correct the
spelling and punctuation as Ridpath did, but
lets it stand just as Brown wrote
it. The story is about six pages
lie Ia ~
for convenience and speaks of himself as though
he were some other boy. This letter would give
your teachers of punctuation and use of capitals
severe shock. but the spelling sad construction
are good, and the story tells you just what you
want to know, and is just what it purports to be
"a plain and consistent account of Browns
life 1t has what we demand on the part of
every writer, first or last, and what is the essen
tial part of all biographies-a simple and sincere
account of his own life, and not merely what he
had heard of other mems lives; some such &C.
count as would send to our family and
friends if we were in distant land and if a man
lives by his conscience and sincerity, as Brown
did, he surely lives in distant land to most of
us, and his story should be treasuoed and re-
peated as Browns story to Harry Stearns has
been. and will be to the end Of the world.
This history tells as that he was born in Tor
rington, Conn. in 1900; that he was of poor but
respectable parents; that he was farmer as
were his five ancestors, away back to Peter
Brown, who came over in the Mayfower, in
1920; that his grandfather was captain in the
Revolution, and his mothers father served there,
too that his father was stock raiser, and
contractor to supply the American army with
beef IN the war of 1872 with England, and that
he, when twelve years old, was present.
with his father, and witnessed the
surrender of General Hull He says he doesn't
remember anything of the first four years of
his life worth mentioning except that he was
tempted to steal four large brass pins that be-
longed to their house GIRL that he stole them;
that his mother found it out, let him think of it
all day and then whipped him at night that at
five years OLD his father moved to Ohio, then a
wilderness filled with wild beasts and Indians.
Here, at six years old, he was placed in the
school of adversely" An Indian boy gave him
yellow marble, the first he had ever seen. He
thought much of it, kept it long time and then
lost it and could never find it. He says sit took
years to heal this wound. and think he cried at
times about it," His next great misfortune was
when, at seven years old. he lost his pet bob
tailed squirrel which he had caught and tanned