Samuel Gridley Howe to Theodore Parker, Friday, June 1854 – 9 p.m.

Friday, 9 P. M., June, 1854.

Dear Parker:  —  I must go, or choke in this disgraced and degraded community. I am sick at heart and sick in body. — But one thing I want done. Draw up a brief, terse, strong address to E. G. Loring, stating that the community has lost confidence in him, — that we cannot trust our orphans to the charge of such a man. Put it round at once for signatures. If done now it will receive the signatures of a great majority of the people.

I go to Newport and hope to get strength and heart enough to come back and work again.

Chev.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 269

Samuel Gridley Howe to Theodore Parker, May 1854

Monday, May, 1854.¹

My Dear Parker: — Your words of Saturday have been like live coals in my vitals. I started to go in yesterday, but was too ill to get to your house. I have long made up my mind not to avoid a struggle and a conflict with the myrmidons of this infernal law, but I cannot make it up to seek one. Perhaps my children are the beams in the eye of my reason.

Something must be attempted; but I think not here in Boston, for it will be useless. But it may be attempted with hope of success, on the passage towards the South. I should say in New York City. A dozen resolute men, awaiting his arrival there, can rescue him; a thousand cannot do it here. I shall try to find you.

S. G. HOWE.

_______________

¹ Before the attempted rescue of Burns.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 268-9

Diary of Theodore Parker, November 6, 1851

Saw Dr. Howe this afternoon: he looks better, in fine health and spirits. I went with him to the Faneuil Hall meeting of Free-soilers. Sumner was on his legs — a fine speaker, a very sincere and good fellow, only he wants courage. Howe is braver and richer in ideas, but not so well trained for literary work.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 266-7

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1854

I stayed at Mr. Parker's nominally, he being at the West, and luxuriated in his splendid library, the finest in Boston, I suppose; beyond comparison. Perhaps you do not know that he appropriates to this his receipts from lecturing, and that he is building it up for a permanent thing, to be placed after his death in some public institution; for the benefit of scholars yet unborn. Miss Stevenson told me many instances of his kind actions, young people supported at school, and such sort of things. Just now he is hand in glove with Dr. Beecher, and they are trying to get an organization to find places in families for girls who are in danger of crime, which some persons think better than a Reform School for girls. I recommended E. E. Hale as the best person for their agent, and they have taken it up quite eagerly.

SOURCE: Mary Potter Thacher Higginson, Editor, Letters and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1846-1906, p. 53-4

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, December 31, 1852

Worcester, December 31,1852

Last night Theodore Parker lectured here, and we tea'd with him; he is, you know, the most eloquent talker living; nobody compares to him in that; some are more original, perhaps, in talking; but he knows everything, and pours it out in the most simple and delightful way. His lecture was wonderful as a specimen of popularizing information and thought; in this he has no equal in this country; he is far before H. W. Beecher as a stump orator. It is a treat to see how people listen to him.

SOURCE: Mary Potter Thacher Higginson, Editor, Letters and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1846-1906, p. 53

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, November 1852

Brooklyn, N.Y., November, 1852

. . . We reached Norwich at nine and took the steamer; and here, better still, appeared Henry Ward Beecher. I sat by him and read “Bleak House” in the cabin, and at last, when he moved to go to bed, I introduced or recalled myself to him. “Oh, yes,” said he heartily, “bless your soul, I remember you”; and so we talked until twelve o'clock: chiefly about Wasson and churches generally. He defended pews (to be rented, not owned) and said some very sensible things in their defence, of which I had never thought before. He was very cordial — wished me to know Reverend Mr. Storrs of Brooklyn, his associate in the “Independent,” and said I must come to tea with him on Monday and Mr. S. should come also. . . .

[Charles] Dana was at his office, much changed from his former brown and robust self, pale, thin, and bearded; but seemed very content, though rather tired; said he could endure much more labor in that way than any other. He had a good deal of his old dogmatism. . . . Mr. Ripley was there, fat and uninteresting.

George Curtis pleased me far better. He seemed very cordial and not at all foppish. His voice and manner are extremely like Mr. Bowen (Reverend C. J.). . . . The likeness kept recurring to me as I sat in his pretty study, full of books and engravings. . . . He has written two perfectly charming essays on Emerson and Hawthorne for the lovely illustrated “Homes of American Authors”; a most racy and charming picture of Concord and its peculiar life. I read these at the bookstore afterward with great delight.

. . . I learned one good fact; that the arms of the Wentworths are three cats' heads, which explains my tendencies [fondness for milk].

This evening I have been to H. W. Beecher's church. It is wonderful — an immense church and every seat crowded — far beyond Theodore Parker's. Double rows of chairs in the aisles and such attention. He preached almost entirely extempore and it was like his lectures; no eloquence of thought, or little, but much eloquence of feeling; intense, simple earnestness; no grace, no condensation; no moderation or taste in delivery; and very little to remember. I do not think I should go to hear him often, or it would be more for the magnetism of the congregation than anything else. I think him far less impressive intellectually than Mr. Parker, with whom one naturally compares him.

SOURCE: Mary Potter Thacher Higginson, Editor, Letters and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1846-1906, p. 45-6

Julia Ward Howe to Ann Ward Mailliard, July 13, 1857

Garret Platform,

Lawton's Valley, July 13, 1857.

. . . Charlotte Brontë is deeply interesting, but I think she and I would not have liked each other, while still I see points of resemblance — many indeed— between us. Her life, on the whole, a very serious and instructive page in literary history. God rest her! she was as faithful and earnest as she was clever — she suffered much.

. . . Theodore Parker and wife came here last night, to stay a week if they like it (have just had a fight with a bumble-bee, in avoiding which I banged my head considerably against a door, in the narrow limits of my garret platform); so you see I am still a few squashes (“some pumpkins” is vulgar, and I is n't) . . .

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards & Maud Howe Elliott, Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910, Large-Paper Edition, Volume 1, p. 170

Franklin B. Sanborn to John Brown, July 27, 1859

[July 27, 1859.]

Dear Friend, — Yours of the 18th has been received and communicated. S. G. Howe has sent you fifty dollars in a draft on New York, and I am expecting to get more from other sources (perhaps some here), and will make up to you the three hundred dollars, if I can, as soon as I can; but I can give nothing myself just now, being already in debt. I hear with great pleasure what you say of the success of the business, and hope nothing will occur to thwart it. Your son John was in Boston a week or two since. I tried to find him, but did not; and being away from Concord, he did not come to see me. He saw S. G. Howe, George L. Stearns, Wendell Phillips, Francis Jackson, etc.; and everybody liked him. I am very sorry I could not see him. All your Boston friends are well. Theodore Parker is in Switzerland, much better, it is thought, than when he left home. Henry Sterns, of Springfield, is dead.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 534-5

Gerrit Smith to John Brown, June 4, 1859

Peterboro', June 4, 1859.

Captain John Brown.

My Dear Friend, — I wrote you a week ago, directing my letter to the care of Mr. Stearns. He replied, informing me that he had forwarded it to Westport; but as Mr. Morton received last evening a letter from Mr. Sanborn, saying your address would be your son's home, — namely, West Andover, — I therefore write you without delay, and direct your letter to your sou. I have done what I could thus far for Kansas, and what I could to keep you at your Kansas work. Losses by indorsement and otherwise have brought me under heavy embarrassment the last two years, but I must, nevertheless, continue to do, in order to keep you at your Kansas work. I send you herewith my draft for two hundred dollars. Let me hear from you on the receipt of this letter. You live in our hearts, and our prayer to God is that you may have strength to continue in your Kansas work. My wife joins me in affectionate regard to you, dear John, whom we both hold in very high esteem. I suppose you put the Whitman note into Mr. Stearns's hands. It will be a great shame if Mr. Whitman does not pay it. What a noble man is Mr. Stearns!¹ How liberally he has contributed to keep you in your Kansas work!

Your friend,

Gerrit Smith.

________________

¹ To those who could read between the lines, this letter disclosed the whole method of the secret committee. No one of them might know at any given time where Brown was, but some other was sure to know, — and in this one note four persons are named who might be at any time in coromnnication with Brown wherever he was, — George L. Stearns, Edwin Morton, F. B. Sanborn, and Mr. Smith himself. The phrase “Kansas work” misled none of these persons, who all knew that Brown had finally left Kansas and was to operate henceforth in the slave States. The hundred dollars given by Mr. Smith April 14, added to the two hundred mimed in this letter, and the note of E. B. Whitman, of Kansas, which Brown received from Mr. Smith, make up five hundred and eighty-five dollars, or more than one-fifth of the two thousand dollars which he told Brown he would help his "Eastern friends" raise. Those friends were Stearns, Howe, Higginson, and Sanborn, — for Parker was then in Europe, and unable to contribute.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 524

George L. Stearns, September 20, 1858

Boston, Sept 20, 1858.

My Dear Friend, — Yours of yesterday is at hand. I should prefer Saturday at seven P. M., if that is agreeable to Mr. Parker and yourself. If you decide on that time, please notify Mr. Parker and Dr. Howe. If you do not write me to change the time, I shall be there without further notice.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 515

Theodore Parker to Ralph Waldo Emerson, December 9, 1859

Dec. 9, 1859.

My Dear Emerson, — Mr. Apthorp leaves me a corner of his paper, which I am only too glad to fill with a word or two of greeting to you and yours. I rejoiced greatly at the brave things spoken by you at the Fraternity Lecture, and the hearty applause I knew it must meet with there. Wendell Phillips and you have said about all the brave words that have been spoken about our friend Captain Brown — No! J. F. Clarke preached his best sermon on that brave man. Had I been at home, sound and well, I think this occasion would have either sent me out of the country — as it has Dr. Howe — or else have put me in a tight place. Surely I could not have been quite unconcerned and safe. It might not sound well that the minister of the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Church had “left for parts unknown,” and that “between two days,” and so could not fulfil his obligations to lecture or preach. Here to me “life is as tedious as a twice-told tale;” it is only a strennous idleness, — studying the remains of a dead people, and that too for no great purpose of helping such as are alive, or shall ever become so. I can do no better and no more. Here are pleasant Americans, — Mrs. Crawford, my friend Dr. Appleton, and above all the Storys, — most hospitable of people, and full of fire and wit. The Apthorps and Hunts are kind and wise as always, and full of noble sentiments. Of course, the great works of architecture, of sculpture and painting, are always here; but I confess I prefer the arts of use, which make the three millions of New England comfortable, intelligent, and moral, to the fine arts of beauty, which afford means of pleasure to a few emasculated dilettanti. None loves beauty more than I, of Nature or Art; but I thank God that in the Revival of Letters our race — the world-conquering Teutons — turned off to Science, which seeks Truth and Industry, that conquers the forces of Nature and transfigures Matter into Man; while the Italians took the Art of Beauty for their department. The Brownings are here, poet and poetess both, and their boy, the Only. Pleasant people are they both, with the greatest admiration for a certain person of Concord, to whom I also send my heartiest thanks and good wishes. To him and his long life and prosperity!

Theodore Parker.¹

_______________

¹ Parker's letter to Francis Jackson on the deed and death of Brown was one of his last public utterances, — for he died and was buried in Florence, where Mrs. Browning was afterwards buried, in May, 1860.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 513

Theodore Parker to Judge Thomas Russell, April 1857

Sunday Morning.

My Dear Judge, — If John Brown falls into the hands of the marshal from Kansas, he is sure either of the gallows or of something yet worse. If I were in his position, I should shoot dead any man who attempted to arrest me for those alleged crimes; then I should be tried by a Massachusetts jury and be acquitted.

Yours truly,

T. P.

P. S. I don't advise J. B. to do this, but it is what I should do.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 512

Gerrit Smith to Franklin B. Sanborn, January 22, 1859

Peterboro’, Jan. 22, 1859.

My Dear Sir, — I have yours of the 19th. I am happy to learn that the Underground Railroad is so prosperous in Kansas. I cannot help it now, in the midst of the numberless calls upon me. But I send you twenty-five dollars, which I wish you to scud to our noble friend John Brown. Perhaps you can get some other contributions to send along with it. He is doubtless in great need of all be can get. The topography of Missouri is unfavorable. Would that a spur of the Alleghany extended from the east to the west borders of the State! Mr. Morton has not yet returned. We hope he may come to-night.

In haste, your friend,

Gerrit Smith.

P. S. Dear Theodore Parker! May Heaven preserve him to us!

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 483

Thomas Wentworth Higginson to Theodore Parker, May 9, 1858

Brattleboro, May 9, 1858.

I regard any postponement, as simply abandoning the project; for if we give it up now, at the command or threat of H. F., it will be the same next year. The only way is to circumvent the man somehow (if he cannot be restrained in his malice). When the thing is well started, who cares what he says?

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 458-9

Franklin B. Sanborn to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, May 5, 1858

May 5, 1858

It looks as if the project must, for the present, be deferred, for I find by reading Forbes's epistles to the doctor that he knows the details of the plan, and even knows (what very few do) that the doctor, Mr. Stearns, and myself are informed of it. How he got this knowledge is a mystery. He demands that Hawkins be dismissed as agent, and himself or some other be put in his place, threatening otherwise to make the business public. Theodore Parker and G. L. Stearns think the plan must be deferred till another year; the doctor does not think so, and I am in doubt, inclining to the opinion of the two former.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 458

John Brown to Theodore Parker, March 7, 1858

Boston, Mass., March 7, 1858.

My Dear Sir, — Since you know I have an almost countless brood of poor hungry chickens to “scratch for,” you will not reproach me for scratching even on the Sabbath. At any rate, I trust God will not. I want you to undertake to provide a substitute for an address you saw last season, directed to the officers and soldiers of the United States Army. The ideas contained in that address I of course like, for I furnished the skeleton. I never had the ability to clothe those ideas in language at all to satisfy myself; and I was by no means satisfied with the style of that address, and do not know as I can give any correct idea of what I want. I will, however, try.

In the first place it must be short, or it will not be generally read. It must be in the simplest or plainest language, without the least affectation of the scholar about it, and yet be worded with great clearness and power. The anonymous writer must (in the language of the Paddy) be “afther others,” and not “afther himself at all, at all.” If the spirit that communicated Franklin's Poor Richard (or some other good spirit) would dictate, I think it would be quite as well employed as the “dear sister spirits” have been for some years past. The address should be appropriate, and particularly adapted to the peculiar circumstances we anticipate, and should look to the actual change of service from that of Satan to the service of God. It should be, in short, a most earnest and powerful appeal to men's sense of right and to their feelings of humanity. Soldiers are men. and no man can certainly calculate the value and importance of getting a single “nail into old Captain Kidd's chest.” It should be provided beforehand, and be ready in advance to distribute by all persons, male and female, who may be disposed to favor the right.

I also want a similar short address, appropriate to the peculiar circumstances, intended for all persons, old and young, male, and female, slaveholding and non-slaveholding, to be sent out broadcast over the entire nation. So by every male and female prisoner on being set at liberty, and to be read by them during confinement. I know that men will listen, and reflect too, under such circumstances. Persons will hear your antislavery lectures and abolition lectures when they have become virtually slaves themselves. The impressions made on prisoners by kindness and plain dealing, instead of barbarous and cruel treatment, such as they might give, and instead of being slaughtered like wild reptiles, as they might very naturally expect, are not only powerful but lasting. Females are susceptible of being carried away entirely by the kindness of an intrepid and magnanimous soldier, even when his bare name was but a terror the day previous.¹ Now, dear sir, I have told you about as well as I know how, what I am anxious at once to secure. Will you write the tracts, or get them written, so that I may commence colporteur?

Very respectfully your friend,

John Brown.

P. S. If I should never see you again, please drop me a line (enclosed to Stephen Smith, Esq., Lombard Street, Philadelphia), at once, saying what you will encourage me to expect. You are at liberty to make any prudent use of this to stir up any friend.

Yours for the right,

J. B.

_______________

¹ A Kansas newspaper said in 1859: “At the sacking of Osawatomie one of the most bitter proslavery men in Lykins County was killed. His name was Ed. Timmons. Sometime afterward Brown stopped at the loghouse where Timmons had lived. His widow and children were there, and in great destitution. He inquired into their wants, relieved their distresses, and supported them until their friends in Missouri, informed through Brown of the condition of Mrs. Timmons, had time to come to her and carry her to her former home. Mrs. Timmons fully appreciated the great kindness thus shown her, but never learned that John Brown was her benefactor.”

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 448-9

John Brown to Theodore Parker, March 4, 1858

American House, Boston, March 4, 1858.

My Dear Sir, — I shall be most happy to see you at my room (126) in this house, at any and at all hours that may suit your own convenience, or that of friends. Mr. Sanborn asked me to be here by Friday evening, and as I was anxious to have all the time I could get, I came on at once. Please call by yourself and with friends as you can. Please inquire for Mr. (not Captain) Brown, of New York.

Your friend,

John Brown.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 447

John Brown to Franklin B. Sanborn, February 24, 1858

Peterboro', N. Y., Feb. 24, 1858.

My Dear Friend, — Mr. Morton has taken the liberty of saying to me that you felt half inclined to make a common cause with me. I greatly rejoice at this; for I believe when you come to look at the ample field I labor in, and the rich harvest which not only this entire country but the whole world during the present and future generations may reap from its successful cultivation, you will feel that you are out of your element until you find you are in it, an entire unit. What an inconceivable amount of good you might so effect by your counsel, your example, your encouragement, your natural and acquired ability for active service! And then, how very little we can possibly lose! Certainly the cause is enough to live for, if not to —— for. I have only had this one opportunity, in a life of nearly sixty years; and could I be continued ten times as long again, I might not again have another equal opportunity. God has honored but comparatively a very small part of mankind with any possible chance for such mighty and soul-satisfying rewards. But, my dear friend, if you should make up your mind to do so, I trust it will be wholly from the promptings of your own spirit, after having thoroughly counted the cost. I would flatter no man into such a measure, if I could do it ever so easily.

I expect nothing but to “endure hardness;” but I expect to effect a mighty conquest, even though it be like the last victory of Samson. I felt for a number of years, in earlier life, a steady, strong desire to die: but since I saw any prospect of becoming a “reaper” in the great harvest, I have not only felt quite willing to live, but have enjoyed life much; and am now rather anxious to live for a few years more.

Your sincere friend,

John Brown.¹

_______________

¹ This letter, which is now in possession of Mrs. Stearns, was received by me soon after my return to Concord. On my way through Boston I had communicated to Theodore Parker (at his house in Exeter Place, to which I had taken Brown in January, 1857, and where he met Mr. Garrison and other Abolitionists) the substance of Brown's plan; and upon receiving the letter I transmitted it to Parker. He retained it, so that it was out of my possession in October, 1859, when I destroyed most of the letters of Brown and others which could compromise our friends. Some time afterward, probably in 1862, when Parker had been dead two years, my letters to him came back to me, and among them this epistle. It has to me an extreme value, from its association with the memory of my best and noblest friends; but in itself it is also a remarkable utterance. That it did not draw me into the field as one of Brown's band was due to the circumstance that the interests of other persons were then too much in my hands and in my thoughts to permit a change of my whole course of life.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 444-5

John Brown to Theodore Parker, February 2, 1858

Rochester, N. Y., Feb. 2, 1858.

My Dear Sir, — I am again out of Kansas, and am at this time concealing my whereabouts; but for very different reasons, however, from those I had for doing so at Boston last spring. I have nearly perfected arrangements for carrying out an important measure in which the world has a deep interest, as well as Kansas; and only lack from five to eight hundred dollars to enable me to do so, — the same object for which I asked for secret-service money last fall. It is my only errand here; and I have written to some of our mutual friends in regard to it, but they none of them understand my views so well as you do, and 1 cannot explain without their first committing themselves more than I know of their doing. I have heard that Parker Pillsbury and some others in your quarter hold out ideas similar to those on which I act; but I have no personal acquaintance with them, and know nothing of their influence or means. Cannot you either by direct or indirect action do something to further me? Do you not know of some parties whom you could induce to give their abolition theories a thoroughly practical shape? I hope this will prove to be the last time I shall be driven to harass a friend in such a way. Do you think any of my Garrisonian friends, either at Boston, Worcester, or any other place, can be induced to supply a little “straw,” if I will absolutely make “bricks”! I have written George L. Stearns, Esq., of Medford, and Mr. F. B. Sanborn, of Concord; but I am not informed as to how deeply-dyed Abolitionists those friends are, and must beg you to consider this communication strictly confidential, — unless you know of parties who will feel and act, and hold their peace. I want to bring the thing about during the next sixty days. Please write N. Hawkins, care William J. Watkins, Esq., Rochester, N. Y.

Very respectfully your friend,

John Brown.¹

_______________

¹ Weiss's Life of Theodore Parker, vol. ii. pp. 163, 164.

SOURCES: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 434-5; Frank Preston Stearns, The Life and Public Services of George Luther Stearns, p. 161;

Franklin B. Sanborn to Theodore Parker, January 15, 1858

Concord, Jan. 15, 1858.

Dear Friend, — I send you a letter this day received from Forbes. During the week I have received a note from Mr. Sumner, who sent me two letters of Forbes to him, in which he says these same things. Now, if it were not for the wife and children, who are undoubtedly in suffering, the man might be hanged for all me, — for his whole style towards me is a combination of insult and lunacy. But I fear there was such an agreement between him and Brown, though Brown has told me nothing of it; and if so, he has a claim upon somebody, though not particularly upon us. Is there anything that can be done for him? I have written to Brown inquiring about the matter, but cannot get an answer before the middle of February. Have you heard anything from Brown or Whitman? When you do, please let me hear of it. Forbes's threats are of no account, and they, with the vulgar abuse which he uses, show what sort of man he is. I shall answer his letter, and send him ten dollars.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 428