The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-09-07
NOT IN HIS CRAVE
ONE MEMBER OF JOHN BROWNS
PARTY WHO DOES NOT
MOULDER.
he is NOW A POPULlST.
RELATES HIS EXPERIENCE WHILE
ATTENDING THE SIT. LOUIS
CONVENTION.
MAS ONCE A NEWSPAPER MAN
Who Joined the AbOlitiOuists IL
Kansas and Followed Them
Through the Raid.

of the Populist national convention at
St Louis was an old man, thick set,
with long hair and grizzled beard,
hailing from Kansas.
He was not man who would be
taken for a celebrity, yet that man,
according to his own statements, and
those of his neighbors, is probably the
only survivor of that historic raid of
John Brown at Harper's Ferry.
His name is Col Richard j. Hinton.
While he was not in reality in that
memorable raid, it was because he was
acting under the orders of capt.
Brown at the time, and was trying to
reach the abolitionist with a wagon
loaded with supplies.
Col. Hinton was a close personal
friend of John Brown and an ardent
admirer of the Kansas hero. He is
now Populist, and takes the greatest
interest in the actions of his party
His association with Capt. John
Brown makes him an interesting char
acter of the Populist party, which he
thinks now occupies the same position
as the Republican party did in 1860.
When asked to relate his experiences
as an associate of old John Brown, he
at first declined going over the old
story again, but was finally persuaded
to tell the story of his connection with
that memor able event
STARTED AS A NEWSPAPER LAD.
Il was newspaper lad, could
scarcely be called a man, living in Bos-
ton, and anticipated a sort of mild lit
erary career, when the repeal of the
Missouri compromise came up in 1854
and precipitated the preliminary
scrimmageS between freedom and slay-
cry.
In the summer of 1856 I went to
Kansas as a free-state newspaper cor
respondent. The year before, in the
summer of 1855, several of John
Browns sons from Ohio and New York
moved to the new territory. They
were stalwart abolitionists, inclined to
resist slavery forcibly, but they went
to Kansas as actual settlers. These
members of the family were John
Brown Jr., Jason o. Brown, with their
wives and children; their brothers,
Fred and Owen Brown, sister, Ruth,
and her husband, Henry Thompson.
the children of John Brown by his first
wife. Solomon Brown, the younger son
of the second wife, was also one of
the party. Mrs. Browns brother Aus
tin Day, as well as a brother-in-Iaw of
Rev. William Adair, still lives in Osa-
s.watomie, Kas. and was a part of the
Brown contingent of the free-state ad-
yeeates.g In all there were fourteen
persons. They We're in the territory
several months before their father ar
rived. Free7state men had been muir
d dered, armed invasion from Missouri
occurred, and organized military forces
had been sent from the South to drive
out free=state citizens. Old John Brown
himself did not go to settle in Kan
SaS. He went to visit his sons and
other Northern men to fight slavery.
The young newspaper men in Kansas,
of whom l was one, were an important
part of that fight. There were sixteen
or seventeen of them, and some more
of them have become well known. Per-
haps not the wisest men. as counting
room and directors offices measure
wisdom by the profit side Of the led
ger. yet they certainly by their earn
estness and courage did a good share
of the work by the operations of which
profits were afterwards made. All but
two or three of the Northern writers
and fighters gravitated quite naturally
to the direct and positive policy and
action which John Brown taught and
pursued.
81 certainly did, and during that
summer of fighting I had a little show
with pen and pencil under John
Browns leadership, and have never
been accused of hiding my opinions
behind a screen, and every man in
Kansas, who cared to, knew 1 was an
abolitionist of pronounced type, and
not a Republican or black law man.
/ was willing, as were most of those
who were active in the field I labored
in, to sustain the Republican idea of
non-eXtension of slavery, but were con-
sidered 1awless' enough to be limited
by the compromise and ready to hit
slavery when we got chance John
Brown gave some of us the chance.
JOHN BROWNS MILITARY
SCHOOL.
after the season of fighting of 1856
and the consequent defeat of the pro-
slavery movement Capt. Brown retired
from Kansas for about year, return
ing fncog' in Nov, 1857. At that time
he took ten Of the well known young
men from Lawrence and Topeka, and,
with his son Owen, established a
school of military instruction. What
is known as the Lecompton constitu-
ton was then pending and free states
men decided that If congress deter
mined to force that slave instrument
upon Kansas they would resist it. il
necessary, to civil war
THE young men who left with John
Brown were supposed to be a nucleus
out of which he was going to form q
radical fighting force. John Brown
himself, however, selected these men
and gave his confidence to a few OF
us, myself included. for the purpose
of forming leaders and fighters in q
movement he had been planning ever
since 1889. l was to have been a mem
Der of that party, but absence from
Lawrence prevented at the time he
formed it. The movement contemplat.
ed was deliberate intention to attack
slavery where 1t existed, and in 1895
he had even selected the very locality
against which he delivered the blow
twsfty years later. "A majority of those
who wintered in Iowa afterwards went
to Harper's Ferry and participated in
the raid. They all went to Charlton
Canada, and with a number of repre-
sentatives of the fugitive slave popu.
iation adopted what is known as the
!. John Brown constitution. This instru.
ment and the machinery he proposed
to organize was designed for the gov.
, eminent of the fugitive slaves who
might join and fight with him in the