John Brown

His mother died in December 1808, hours after a newborn sister, and he wrote decades later that he mourned her for years. He was eight. His father Owen, a tanner in Hudson, Ohio, grew wealthy and became a trustee of Oberlin College after Western Reserve refused to enroll a Black man. At 16 the son went east to train for the ministry, studying under Moses Hallock at Plainfield, Massachusetts, and would have gone on to Amherst, but an inflammation of the eyes turned chronic and closed the door. He went home, taught himself surveying out of a book, opened a tannery with his adopted brother, and in 1820 married the daughter of his housekeeper.

The last four years were the public ones. He went to Kansas armed, came back with a price on his head, took money from Boston parlors, and spent it on rifles and pikes for a rising that never came. Virginia hanged him on December 2, 1859, the first person executed for treason in the country's history, and the war he had promised arrived 16 months later. BriefHistory tells that story from the arsenal outward, and tells it in full. What follows is the 40 years of failure that manufactured the man who tried it.

Before the rifles there was a long run of ruin. He bred horses and quit when buyers raced them, surveyed, farmed, tanned hides, took a bank directorship, and went down in the Panic of 1837. A federal court declared him bankrupt on September 28, 1842. He was jailed once for occupying a farm he no longer owned. The next year dysentery killed Charles, Peter and Austin. Amelia died in 1846, Emma in 1849. His first wife Dianthe had died in 1832, in childbirth or just after, having borne seven children in 12 years. Then he began spending his sons. Frederick was shot dead at Osawatomie on August 30, 1856. Watson and Oliver were both mortally wounded at Harpers Ferry, and Watson took nearly two days to die while his father stopped him from ending it.

His body went north to North Elba on December 8, 1859, and Wendell Phillips spoke over it. What Virginia did with his son is quoted less often. Students and faculty at Winchester Medical College took Watson's corpse out of the street, drained it, dyed the arteries, varnished the nerves and set it up as a museum specimen labelled as John Brown's son. The skin was cut into moccasins. Visitors broke off teeth. Union troops burned the college, and an Army surgeon from Indiana shipped the remains home in 1862, but Mary Ann did not bury her son beside his father until October 1882 — 23 years late. Twelve of the raiders followed into one casket in 1899.

John Brown's life against the full span of the corpus.

• Perkins & Brown company
  The Ohio wool growers' agency he ran out of Springfield, Massachusetts 1846
• Subterranean Pass Way other
  His armed answer to the Underground Railroad — he posed with its flag for a daguerreotype 1847
• John Brown Farm building
  Built on Adirondack land bought from Gerrit Smith's grant at a dollar an acre 1849
• League of Gileadites company
  Armed self-defense group of free Black residents of Springfield — nobody was taken back from that city 1850
• Provisional Constitution and Ordinances for the People of the United States other
  A government drafted for the republic he expected the raid to create 1858

• May 9, 1800 aged 0 Born at Torrington, Connecticut, the fourth child of a tanner
• December 1808 aged 8 His mother dies hours after a newborn sister He was eight, and wrote later that he grieved her for years.
• 1820 aged ~20 Opens a tannery and marries Dianthe Lusk Chronic inflammation of the eyes had already ended his plan to enter Amherst and the ministry.
• September 28, 1842 aged 42 Declared bankrupt in federal court
• 1843 aged ~43 Dysentery kills three of his children Charles, Peter and Austin. Amelia died in 1846 and Emma in 1849.
• 1847 aged ~47 Frederick Douglass spends a night arguing with him in Springfield Douglass wrote that he left less hopeful of a peaceful end to slavery.
• August 30, 1856 aged 56 His son Frederick is killed at Osawatomie
• December 2, 1859 aged 59 Hanged at Charles Town at 11:15 in the morning Pronounced dead 35 minutes later. The first execution for treason in United States history.
• October 1882 aged 82 Watson is finally buried beside his father Virginia had kept the body 23 years, most of it as a college exhibit.

• Frederick Douglass 1818–1895
  Former slave who became a leading abolitionist, orator, and advocate for equal rights. argued with
• Harriet Tubman 1822–1913
  Abolitionist who escaped slavery and led hundreds to freedom via the Underground Railroad. recruited
• Robert E. Lee 1807–1870
  Confederate commander whose military reputation and later commemoration became central to Civil War memory and the Lost Cause. captured by
• Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803–1882
  Essayist and philosopher who led the Transcendentalist movement and shaped American intellectual thought. eulogized by
• Abraham Lincoln 1809–1865
  16th President who preserved the Union during the Civil War and issued the Emancipation Proclamation. called him insane
• W.E.B. Du Bois 1868–1963
  Sociologist, historian, and civil rights activist who was the first African American to earn a Harvard doctorate. biographer