The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1909-11-03

any other time. He seemed deep in
thought.
John Brown struck me, boy as l was,
as the firmest kind of believer in his re-
ligious faith. He had family prayers
morning and evening and said grace be-
fore meals. His eyes were keen. but were
of the kindest I ever looked into.
Sometimes of an evening he'd stand
up and talk to the family. His voice
was deep, clear and pleasant. One night
| remember he said very solemnly to his
wife and children that although the
times seemed discouraging. they should
know that the darkest hour came before
clearing weather"
Possibly this speech of John Browns, a
mere commonplace of traditional human
wisdom, was apropos of the hard for
tunes of the family or in prospect of the
deliverance he was expecting to bear to
the slaves At any rate. In the summer
after Mr.. Brewster went to live with the
Browns the family was reduced in num-
| bers by the departure of several for the
mountain farm in Maryland, three or
| four miles from the Virginia line and
within easy striking distance of Harper's
Ferry.
MY sister Martha went with her hus-
| band to keep house at the farm in Mary
| land while John Brown got together his
ammunition and implements of war. -
| said Mr.. Brewster. "She was gone all
summer and until some time in October.
| think she started north so as to reach
home about the time the attack on Har-
pers Ferry was made.
IT remember we'll the night of the at
tack though I did not then guess what
1t was that made the family at the farm
so uneasy. My sister had been back
from Maryland only a few days; the
men of the family and the Thompson
boys were still absent It was a fine Oc-
tober night, sharp, but not cold; just
about the kind of good weather we have
up here about the middle of October.
IT think the family must have sat up
all night At any rate, we were in and
Tout until a late hour, sometimes under
| the stars, sometimes indoors beside the
| lamp. The grown folks knew what was
| going on 400 or 500 miles south, and the
! women realized that their husbands and
| brothers were risking their lives In a
| desperate undertaking. but they were
quiet and self-controlled.
News travelled slowly up here in those
! days and 1t was some time after
the raid that we learned. by way of
Elizabethtown, then the gateway of the
| Adirondacks how terribly the UNDER
taking had failed, at least for the time
being. Even then the widowed women
showed no great feeling, because they
had been schooled by Brown and his
wife in patience.
Il don't remember the details of the
trial except as l have read them since,
but I remember well when John Brown $
body was brought home early in Deem
ber few days after the hanging The
upper part of the house was unfinished,
| because the Browns were not well
enough off to do more than keep a shell
| ter over their heads. and the stairway
| ended opposite a room that had not
| been walled off.
1.-The coffin was carried up the stairs
| and placed on the floor of that open
room. SO that looking up you could see
| one end of it. Next day was the funeral
| There were a good many of our scat
! tered neighbors up at the farm. Most of
! them must have been surprised to learn
! that the John Brown who had come and
| gone mysteriously among them for eight
| or ten years and had exhibited at the
Essex county fair the first Devon cattle
| ever seen in North Elba township was
| the same man who had made such a stir
| in his warfare on slavery.
1--WE buried him with his feet toward
the big bowlder upon which he had not
long before carved the initials j. b.
and where it was understood that ne
had wished to lie. His widow visited the
spot Is or 30 years ago. She is dead now
and buried out in California, though /
think she ought to lie here beside her
husband. None of the family came back
alive at that time to North Elba, sand
my sister Martha died the next March"
Kate Field some years ago raised
money for the purchase OF the John
Brown house and the grave site. The
place was presented to the state of New
York, and the state now maintains a
/ caretaker in the house. The bowder and
the grave have been inclosed in an iron
fence and the marble stone at the head
of the grave has been framed in wood
to protect 1t from relic hunters, who
| had begun to chip 1t to bits.
Through the sheet of glass that covers
| the stone, which Is a memorial not only
| to John Brown. but to his father and his
son Oliver, one may read that John
!, Brown was born May 8, 1900. and that he
! died at Charleston, Va. December 2, 1859.
| The bowlder at the foot of the grave is
marked in large, deep-cut letters John
Brown" Above the grave there waves
from a tan flag pole the Stars and
| Stripes.
WANTED-To borrow di-
/ A. - ~