Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1903-07-30
THE LAST OF THE BAND
Only Survivor of John Browns Raid
ers In the City.

eTS IN tne lily
An interesting character, in the per-
son of DIR. Frank S. Brown, of Musca
tine. the last survivor of the celebrated
party of raiders headed by John
Brown, which seized the government
arsenal at Harpers Ferry in 1859, is in
the city. DR.. Brown is a veterinary
surgeon and has been travelling thru
out the state in company with DR.. c. S.
Lane also of Muscatine. They re-
Gently disposed of their outfit, and DR..
Brown is here for q short visit before
going to Conrad, where he will visit his
three sons, Messrs. Clark, Lovejoy and
Frank Brown, Jr.
Mr. Brown is nephew of the leader
of the party, as a member of which he
now has the distinction of being the
only one living. He talks interestingly
of the stirring days in the latter fiftiss,
when the small handful of men. under
command of "Old Ossawatomie," at
tempted to take the arsenal by force,
with a view to arming the negroes and
melting a servile insurrection.
Mr. Brown is a native of Pennsyl-
vania having been born at Browntown,
Bradford county. His father was Will
liam Brown, a brother of John While
he does not look to be much over so,
DR.. Brown was so years of age on May
%. That he comes Of sturdy race is
indicated not only by his own age and
physical appearance. but also by the
fact that his brother, John Brown, now
of Spirit Lake, is 90 years of age, and is
said to look almost as young.
When seen at the Center House
Wednesday night DR.. Brown was in
duced to talk over the old days that
gave him an experience never to be for
gotten. ut was on the night of Oct. 16,
1889" said Mr.. Brown, when we seiz-
ed the arsenal at the Ferry. There
We're only twenty of us In the
party, which was headed by my uncle
and his two sons. Jacob and John. l
was the only other Brown in the party.
AS you know, by reading history, we
were all captured, and Uncle John was
hung. / was present at Charlestown,
Va, when he went to his death, and l
want to state that his murder, for it
was nothing more or less than foul
murder. was one of the most damnable
deeds ever committed. l also want to
say that the hanging of John Brown,
alone, had such an effect upon the ma
ton that believe it was the match to
the powder that started the civil war.
They hung the best man that ever
walked in the south, If he was my un-
Gle, and he was in the right.
Il know that many people are in
clined to believe that John Brown was
crazy, q fanatic on the slavery ques-
ton, etc. but a saner man never lived
TO be true he could not see but one
side of the slavery question, but there
were many others of his kind, and
he alone had the nerve to carry what
he thought to be right into decisive ac-
ton. l am perfectly in sympathy with
what we did The thing we did do that
was wrong, was that we commenced
wrong. We tried to cover too much
Territory, and undertook to do too much
with few men. You must understand
all our plans We're laid six months be-
fore the raid on Harper's Ferry, AMI
we had every reason to believe that we
could accomplish what we had set out
to do. We would have been successful
too, had those who were With us staid
by us. They became frightened as the
time grew near, and instead of the
1000 men that Uncle John had figured
on he had but twenty seven. The rest
of US were all paroled after our cap
ture. and In two years more l WAS
fighting for the same principles, in the