Brown, John | A letter requesting arms prior to the Pottawatomie Creek Massacre

Brown, John
Autograph letter signed ("John Brown") to Colonel J.W. Coulter, regarding armaments

1 p. (245 x 196 mm) on a sheet of blue ruled paper, Vergennes, Vt., 13th May 1856, to Colonel J.W. Coulter; old folds.

"Please have the articles agreed for by Mr. Sterns extra springs &c., &c., Boxed up (with say 50,000 very best Maynard Primings) and plainly marked J B Care of Dr. Jesse Bowen, Iowa City, Iowa..."

In 1855, John Brown was informed by his sons living in the Kansas territories that they were unequipped to defend themselves against the pro-slavery militants in that area. Brown, with the help of his son-in-law, Henry Thompson, set out for Kansas, and made several stops along the way in order to procure funds and armaments. The date of this letter also leads up to the Sacking of Lawrence, which occurred on 12 May 1856, and saw pro-slavery activists led by Douglas County Sheriff Samuel J. Jones, ransack Lawrence, Kansas, a town established by anti-slavery settlers from Massachusetts, who sought to make Kansas a free state. Brown then orchestrated the Pottawatomie Creek Massacre as an act of retaliation, which was carried out on 24 May 1856.

George L. Stearns, who is also mentioned in the letter, was one of the greatest abolitionists and philanthropists of the day, though he is less well remembered than Brown. Stearns counted Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louisa May Alcott, Julia Ward Howe, Frederick Douglass, Henry David Thoreau, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, and Ulysses S. Grant as friends.

REFERENCE
McGlone, Reynolds, John Brown: Abolitionist 171-8

Condition Report:
Condition as described in catalogue entry.