Knowing your American Heroes ~ JOHN BROWN (1800-1859) ~ by rldubour

Friday! Time for an American Hero! Today is:

 

Knowing your American Heroes

JOHN BROWN (1800-1859)

 

Born on May ninth the second son.
Of Owen and Ruth Mills Brown.
In Torrington, Connecticut
Was then a small New England town.

At age sixteen he left his family
Moved to Plainfield, Massachusetts.
Wanting to be a minister
Out of money he called it quits.

Was then off to Hudson, Ohio
John met and married Dianthe Lusk.
Then purchased two hundred acres
Where he cleared land from dawn to dusk.

First child born was John Junior
Brown cleared one-eighth of his land
Built a log cabin, barn and tannery
Within a year he did expand.

Surveying and raising cattle
His tannery employing fifteen men.
Helped establish a post office
And a school for the town’s children.

Out of luck in eighteen-thirty-one.
In terrible debt in thirty-two
He lost his wife and two sons
And soon would lose his business too.

On June fourteenth-in-thirty-three
A new wife named Mary Ann Day.
With seven children of his own
Thirteen more would come their way.

His knowledge of wool production.
John Brown with a reputation
Empowered by Simon Perkins
To start a wool operation.

In eighteen-hundred-and-four-six.
They opened in Springfield, Mass.
The wool growers of New England
Could not agree they reached an impasse.

In Springfield he met Mr. Douglas
For slavery he was concerned.
Now referred to as Captain Brown
Douglas heard plans of what Brown yearned.

In eighteen-hundred-and-fifty-nine
In Virginia at Harpers Ferry.
Is John Brown’s most famous deed
He seized the federal armory.

Was later known as John Brown’s Fort
Brown was captured tried and hung
The origin of the Civil War
This is how it had all begun.

John Brown the abolitionist
Gave his life to free the slaves.
Viewed as an heroic martyr
He lies smoldering in the grave.

 

AUTHOR NOTES* Calvinist: Etymology: John Calvin: the theological system of Calvin and his followers marked by strong emphasis on the sovereignty of God, the depravity of mankind, and the doctrine of predestination – Cal-VIN-ist /-v&-nist/ noun or adjective Osawatomie Brown, Old Man Brown, Captain Brown and Old Brown of Kansas. His aliases were “Nelson Hawkins,” “Shubel Morgan,” and “Isaac Smith.” Later the song John Brown’s Body became a Union marching song during the Civil War, evolving to The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Empowered by Perkins’s approval and finance, Brown widened the scope of his study and visited sheep farms throughout the northeast, as far north as Vermont and as far south as Virginia. Knowledge of wool inevitably led to knowledge of wool production, and in 1846, responding to the concerns of wool producers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and western Virginia, Brown and Perkins established a wool commission operation in Springfield, Massachusetts, representing the wool growers’ interests against the New England wool manufacturers. Brown moved to Springfield, assuming management of the firm. His family remained in Ohio initially, but eventually joined him there. Douglass wrote about Brown, “Though a white gentleman, he is in sympathy a black man, and as deeply interested in our cause, as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron of slavery.” On October 16, 1859 Brown (leaving three men behind as a rear guard) led 18 men in an attack on the armory at Harpers Ferry. He had received 200 breech loading .52 caliber Sharps carbines and pikes from northern abolitionist societies in preparation for the raid. The armory was a large complex of buildings that contained 100,000 muskets and rifles, which Brown planned to seize and use to arm local slaves.