Thaddeus Hyatt to John Brown, November 14, 1859

NEW YORK, Nov. 14.

My Very Dear Friend: Your letter to Mrs. Maria Child has attracted my attention and induced on my part the action indicated in the enclosed slip from the N. Y. Tribune. You will see that I need your autograph. Please address me immediately. Give yourself no further anxiety as to the needy ones left behind. Warm and loving hearts by thousands at this moment are ready to aid them. You little knew, my friend, when you gave me your likeness, to what good account it would be turned; and I, alas! how little could I then dream of your impending fate, or in that hour guess the motives that prompted you to enjoin upon me the strictest caution as to exposing the photograph to be seen. Did your young friend perish? God be with you, my brave heart! For one animated by such faith as yours pity were reproach. Instead of pity I therefore tender you, O my friend, sympathy and a like faith with your own.

God and his eternal heavens are above us! Eternity is ours! So that, in His sight who shall judge us at the last we stand approved. Life matters not, and death matters not; and whether the hours of this day, or the morrow, be shortened, is of little account; for the shorter life is, the longer eternity is; and which is best for us depends wholly upon God; and in which we can best serve Him it is for God alone to say.

Your courage, my brother, challenges the admiration of men; your faith, the admiration of angels. Be steadfast to the end! Be patient! farewell! I am yours in Christ "for the life that now is, and for that which is to come." Farewell!

Your affectionate brother,

Thaddeus Hyatt.

SOURCE: James Redpath, Editor, Echoes of Harper’s Ferry, p. 389-90

Thaddeus Hyatt to the Friends of Freedom at the North, November 14, 1859

In his letter to Mrs. L. Maria Child, John Brown says:

I have at home a wife and three young daughters, the youngest but little over five years old, the oldest nearly sixteen. I have also two daughters-in-law, whose husbands have both fallen near me here. There is also another widow, Mrs. Thompson, whose husband fell here. Whether she is a mother or not, I cannot say. All these, my wife included, live at North Elba, Essex County, New York. I have a middle-aged son, who has been, in some degree, a cripple from his childhood, who would have as much as he could do to earn a living. He was a most dreadful sufferer in Kansas, and lost all he had laid up. He has not enough to clothe himself for the winter comfortably. I have no living son, or son-in-law, who did not suffer terribly in Kansas.

 

Now, dear friend, would you not as soon contribute fifty cents now, and a like sum yearly, for the relief of those very poor and deeply-afflicted persons? To enable them to supply themselves and their children with bread and very plain clothing, and to enable the children to receive a common English education? Will you also devote your own energies to induce others to join you in giving a like amount, or any other amount, to constitute a little fund for the purpose named?

Friends of Freedom at the North, to these simple and touching words nothing more effective and affecting can be added. The story is here in its simplest and saddest form. Widows and fatherless children! all for liberty! Slain for a principle! The heads of the entire family slain! All the male members cut off! And this in the Nineteenth Century, and this amid a free people!

If there be any braver man in the country than John Brown, let him criticise John Brown at Harper's Ferry. If not, let another generation pass upon the fact and its author. Our duties now are with and for the living. God and history will have a care for the dead. Friends at the North, what will you do for John Brown's family? I have a photograph of the old man, presented to me by his own hands, an admirable likeness. Let all who sympathize in the purpose send each a dollar, and I will forward for each such sum an exact copy of the original, and with it, if possible, John Brown's autograph. The proceeds from ten thousand such copies will produce a fund of eight thousand dollars for the benefit of the helpless and afflicted ones, whom the Kansas hero so touchingly commends to our sympathies and care. Suitable acknowledgment of funds received and applied, will be made from time to time through the columns of the N. Y. Tribune. The photographs can be sent by mail, as music is sent, at the expense of a stamp, which may be enclosed with the order. Address me at New York.

Thaddeus Hyatt.

New York, Nov. 14, 1859.

SOURCE: James Redpath, Editor, Echoes of Harper’s Ferry, p. 390-1

Senator Charles Sumner to George L. Stearns, March 16, 1860

Here are the wages of your testimony!

I am obliged for your suggestion. Have faith. I believe when in active health, I have never done less than was expected of me. I hope not to fall short hereafter.

I have twice visited Hyatt in jail. He is serene and tranquil, determined to stay there at least five years, if before then he is not discharged.

Half of our Republicans need conversion to first principles. Lawyers are strong in defending a point, already occupied. They will find any required number of reasons for their cause. But they are not leaders where great principles are in question. Ask Mr. Sewall if I am not right.

SOURCE: Preston Stearns, The Life and Public Services of George Luther Stearns, p. 214