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miliars which crossed the Missouri border and carried away eleven slaves and some horses and wagons, killing one of the owners who had attempted to defend his possessions. The slaves were safely landed in Canada and the horses were sold at Cleveland, Ohio, by Brown, who had the grace, however, to warn the purchasers of a possible defect in the title.1

Brown wandered in many places until July, 1859, when he appeared in the rough, semi-mountainous country of the upper Potomac, immediately on the highway, and six miles north from Harper's Ferry, where he rented for a year a small place known as the Kennedy farm, on which were two houses. Thither he transported by degrees all his arms and gathered together his twenty-one followers (five of whom were colored), for whom his daughter Anne and his sixteen-year-old daughter-in-law, wife of Oliver Brown, "kept house." Nor were most of the men much older. Except John Brown and his son Owen, they ranged in age from eighteen to twenty-eight. Only five of the whites were over twenty-four years of age; one was not yet nineteen; three were Brown's sons.

Brown's pretence of looking for a better climate and for a location for raising sheep, imposed upon the unsophisticated neighbors, and no suspicions seem to have been roused by the presence and the going to and fro in this secluded district of a number of strangers, who wandered freely over the

'Sanborn, John Brown, 494.

mountains of the vicinity. The time in-doors was spent in what they called drill and in looking after the arms. The heads of the pikes had come separately from the shafts, which latter passed for forkhandles; they were fitted together at the farm.

An anonymous letter dated at Cincinnati, August 20, 1859, to the secretary of war, gave full information of the intended movement, but received no attention. It indicated so clearly Brown's movements that it was evident later that it had been written by one thoroughly informed. Not until 1897 was the name of the writer made public, and it was then shown to have been written in Iowa by a young man urged on by the solicitude of some in the Quaker settlement, which he was visiting, for the safety of the young Iowans accompanying Brown.'

Sunday, October 16, the party was assembled in an all-day council at the Kennedy farm, the "constitution" was read for the benefit of four newcomers, commissions for newly made officers made out, and orders given detailing the movement, which Brown had decided should be that evening. "Captains" Owen Brown, Merriam, and Barclay Coppoc were to remain and guard arms and effects until morning, when, joined by some men from Harper's Ferry, they were to remove the arms with teams to an old school - house in Virginia threequarters of a mile from Harper's Ferry. Two were to go ahead of the wagon in which Brown was to 1 B. F. Gue, in Am. Hist. Mag., I., 162 et seq. (March, 1906).

go and cut the telegraph wires; two were to capture the watchman at the railroad bridge, and two were detailed for each of the following posts: the covered Potomac bridge, the engine-house, the armory, and the rifle factory. "Captain" Stevens, after the engine-house should be seized, was to go. into the country with five companions and take certain persons prisoners, among them Colonel Lewis Washington, owner of the Washington sword which tradition has falsely ascribed as a present from Frederick the Great, which Brown coveted, and which, when received, he theatrically wore.

The invading procession left the Kennedy farm at eight o'clock. Brown, with his wagon and party, having captured the bridge watchman, went on to the armory, forced the door, and seized the watchman. The several stations assigned were occupied by eleven o'clock. A shot fired at a relief bridge watchman gave the alarm. The stoppage of an eastward-bound train at midnight at first suggested to the passengers a strike among the arsenal workmen; at daylight it was allowed to proceed with a knowledge of the true situation, Brown himself seeing the conductor across the bridge, as he "had no intention of interfering with the comfort of passengers or hindering the United States mails." 1

With daylight, October 17, came a four-horse wagon-load of Colonel Washington's slaves. Washington himself, when aroused and captured, had Hinton, John Brown and His Men, 288.

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been ordered to give in charge to Anderson (a colored man) the historic sword, and a pair of pistols from Lafayette. He was brought in his own carriage to the armory, where he was kept as a prisoner, as were several other neighboring slave-owners. The Washington wagon and fourteen slaves were sent to the Kennedy farm to assist in removing the arms to the Virginia school-house.1

Two deaths had by this time occurred; the first that of a colored porter at the hotel who would not stop when ordered; the other that of the village mayor, Beckham, who was passing unarmed in range from the engine-house, and whose body was left exposed for some hours. An inquisitive bartender had been seized, but was exchanged for breakfast from the hotel for forty persons.

The countryside being now aroused, men with arms of all sorts poured into the village. Militia began to arrive from all the neighboring and some of the more distant towns, and desultory fighting began with a number of casualties on either side. At nightfall Brown held the engine-house with four men and ten prisoners, his son Oliver dead and another son, Watson, dying. Six others were dead, three wounded, and one a prisoner. At eleven in the evening a company of United States marines arrived from Washington, accompanied by Colonel Robert E. Lee, of General Scott's staff, who took over the command. At seven the next morn

Hinton, John Brown and His Men, 294.

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