John Brown Junior

John H. Brown Jr. (July 25, 1821 – May 3, 1895) was the eldest son of the abolitionist John Brown. His mother was Brown's first wife, Dianthe Lusk Brown, who died when John Jr. was 11. He was born in Hudson, Ohio. In 1841 he tried teaching in a country school, but left it after one year, finding it frustrating and the children "snotty". In spring 1842 he enrolled at the Grand River Institute in Austinburg, Ohio.[1]:128 In July 1847 he married Wealthy Hotchkiss. The couple settled in Springfield, Massachusetts.[2]

Kansas

Brown moved with four of his brothers to Kansas Territory in spring 1855. While his brothers Frederick, Owen, and Salmon traveled by land, Brown and his brother Jason traveled by boat, along with their families. He was elected to the territorial legislature in 1856.

Brown did not join his father and brothers in the Pottawatomie Massacre of May, 1856. However, he was captured by Henry Clay Pate, a border ruffian and commander of a proslavery militia, in connection with the murders. He was turned over to federal authority, Captain Thomas J. Wood. He was beaten by the soldiers and suffered a mental breakdown.

His father, John Brown, plotted a rescue. His troops overtook proslavery men in the Battle of Black Jack near Palmyra on June 2, 1856. The elder Brown captured Pate and his men, provisions, horses, mules, and equipment. He agreed to release the prisoners in exchange for his sons.

A proslavery court in Lecompton charged John Brown, Jr., with high treason because he was a free-state politician. He was finally released from prison in September.[3] Shortly after this, John Jr. left Kansas with his father.

John Jr. was not part of the raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, but he knew all the details and was part of the process of preparing for it. When his brother Owen escaped capture, he took safe refuge with John Jr. at his home in northeast Ohio.

In Kansas

John Jr. was a member of the Topeka Legislature.[4]

Intelligence agent and liaison

Because of tensions between John Brown and other members of the plans and cause, John Brown appointed John Jr. as the intelligence agent and liaison.[5] This meant that John Jr. would be the go-between for John Brown and other members. This provided safety for John Brown and secrecy.

Knowledge of the Virginia raid

It was suspected that John Jr. was aware of his father's plans to raid the arsenal in Virginia. This plan was addressed to several men, although the definite position and location of attack might not have been as widely known except to those closest to Brown.[6] It is said that John Jr. was well aware of the plans for the Virginia arsenal.[7]

John Jr. received word from his father to move the "tools" for the raid.[8] The letter told John Jr. to do this "with perfect quiet" and to move only the tools, "not the other stuff", to a safe place where only Jr. and "the keeper" would know where they were. This cryptic message was received and Jr. travelled to Conneaut, Ohio, where the weapons had been secretly shipped, and moved them several miles south to a farm in Cherry Valley township.[8]

In early 1860, the U.S. Senate created a Select Committee to report on the invasion of Harper's Ferry. James M. Mason, head of the committee, submitted a resolution to compel John Jr. and two others to testify. A deputy of the Senate's Sergeant-at-Arms was sent to arrest the individuals—according to the report, Brown was then living in Ashtabula County, Ohio—and bring them to Washington. The deputy reported that Brown could not be arrested without the employment of armed force.[9]

Scouting and recruiting

John Brown sent John Jr. on a journey throughout the state of Pennsylvania, wanting him to find men "of the right stripe" [10] willing to join John Brown's cause. The areas that John Jr. was ordered to visit, specifically, were Gettysburg, Bedford, Chambersburg, and Uniontown.[10] John Jr. also spent time visiting Massachusetts, New York, and Canada, trying to enlist black supporters. Neither of these missions produced the desired results, and the "army" attacking the Arsenal was merely twenty-one men.

Scouting around Harper's Ferry

John Jr. acted as his father's liaison for the raid in Virginia.[11] In 1858, John Brown sent John Jr. to Virginia. This mission was to survey the area surrounding Harper's Ferry.

Civil War and Jennison's Jayhawkers

In July 1861, Brown decided to recruit a company of soldiers that would travel to Kansas and enlist with Kansas volunteer forces then operating in Missouri under the auspices of Kansas Senator James H. Lane. His intention was to enlist "abolitionists of the intense sort"[12] and muster them under Colonel James Montgomery, one of Lane's three Lieutenants.[13] John Brown's "Sharpshooters" garnered significant press attention as they traveled from Ohio to Kansas.[14][15] However, on its arrival, the company had only signed 66 men. On November 9, 1861, while Brown was still recruiting in Michigan, the company elected to join Colonel Charles R. Jennison's First Kansas Cavalry, later designated the Kansas Seventh Volunteer Cavalry, and known in Missouri as Jennison's Jayhawkers.[13] Upon his own arrival in December, Brown was mustered in as the captain of Company K of the Kansas Seventh. Brown served as captain of the company until May 1862, when he resigned because of his rheumatoid arthritis.[12] He was succeeded as captain of the company by his second lieutenant, George H. Hoyt, who had been one of his father's lawyers following the Harpers Ferry attack.[12]

Post-war

Following his resignation, Brown purchased 10 acres on the south shore of South Bass Island at Put-in-Bay, Ohio,[16] becoming a socialist later in life.[17] A visitor about 1871 described him as a "quiet, genial, warm-hearted farmer, amateur geologist, and land surveyor".[18]

In 1882 John Jr. travelled to Martinsville, Indiana, to identify the body of his brother Watson. (See Burning of Winchester Medical College.) He was the guest of the Governor of Indiana for dinner.

He remained at Put-In-Bay until his death on May 3, 1895.[19]

He is portrayed by Dennis Weaver in the 1955 American historical drama film Seven Angry Men.[20]

In The Good Lord Bird, a 2020 Showtime Limited Series based on the 2013 novel of the same name, he is played by Nick Eversman.[21]

Notes
  1. DeCaro Jr., Louis A. (2020). "Fire from the midst of you" : A Religious Life of John Brown. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 081471921X.
  2. "John Brown, Jr". Kansas Historical Society. 2019. Retrieved January 9, 2021.
  3. Warch & Fanton 1973, p. 10.
  4. "Old John Brown". Herald of Freedom (Lawrence, Kansas). October 29, 1859. p. 2 – via newspaperarchive.com.
  5. Oates 1970, p. 223.
  6. Sanborn 1891, p. 450.
  7. Ables 1971, p. 150.
  8. Oates 1970, p. 252.
  9. "United States Congressional Serial Set". 1893.
  10. Oates 1970, p. 226.
  11. Decaro, Lousi. "John Brown the Abolitionist – A Biographer's Blog".
  12. Fox 1902, p. 14.
  13. Brown, John, Jr. (Dec 13, 1861). "Correspondence". Letter to Wealthy Brown. Topeka, KS.: Kansas State Historical Society.
  14. "John Brown Jr.'s Company". Liberator. Nov 8, 1861.
  15. "A Significant Letter". Daily True Delta. Sep 25, 1861.
  16. Hinton, Richard J. (1894). John Brown and His Men. New York: Funk and Wagnalls. p. 14.
  17. Reynolds, David (29 July 2009). John Brown, Abolitionist The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 82. ISBN 9780307486660.
  18. Keeler, Ralph (March 1874). "Owen Brown's Escape From Harper's Ferry". Atlantic Monthly: 342–365, at p. 342.
  19. "John Brown, Jr., eldest son of 'Osawatomie Brown'". Springfield Republican. Springfield, Massachusetts. May 4, 1895.
  20. "Seven Angry Men". IMDB.
  21. "Nick Eversman". IMDB.

Sources
  • Ables, Jules (1971). Man On Fire: John Brown and the Cause of Liberty.
  • Fox, Simeon M. (1902). Story of the Seventh Kansas. Topeka: Kansas State Historical Society.
  • Hoyt, Bill (2012). Good Hater: George Henry Hoyt's War on Slavery. Garland, KS: Bill Hoyt.
  • Oates, Stephen B. (1970). To Purge this Land with Blood. New York: Harper & Rowe.
  • Sanborn, Franklin, ed. (1891). The Life and Letters of John Brown.
  • Warch, Richard; Fanton, Jonathan, eds. (1973). Great Lives Observed: John Brown.
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