Brown, John 1800-59
US abolitionist

Born in Torrington, Connecticut, of Pilgrim descent, he was sucessively tanner and land surveyor, shepherd and farmer. A strong abolitionist, he wandered through the country on antislavery enterprises. He was twice married and had 20 children. In 1854, five of his sons moved to Kansas, and, joining them after the border conflict had begun, he became a leader in the strife. His home was burned in 1856 and one of his sons killed. When the war in Kansas ended, Brown began to drill men in Iowa. His next scheme was to establish a stronghold in the mountains of Virginia as a refuge for runaway slaves, and in 1859 he seized the Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry in Virginia, intending to launch a slave insurrection, and took several citizens prisoner. The arsenal was stormed by Colonel Robert E Lee with a company of marines. Brown and six men, barricading themselves in an engine-house, continued to fight until two of Brown's sons were killed and he was severely wounded. Tried by a Virginia court for insurrection, treason and murder, he was convicted and hanged at Charlestown, Virginia. The song 'John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave' (attributed to Thomas B Bishop (1835-1905)), commemorating the Harpers Ferry raid, was highly popular with Republican soldiers as a marching song in the Civil War. Provided with more fitting words by Julia Ward Howe, it became 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic'.

Bibliography: Stephen B Oates, To Purge This Land With Blood: A Biography of John Brown (1970)