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John Brown Biography

Born in Torrington, Connecticut on May 9, 1800, John Brown was the son of a wandering New Englander. Brown spent much of his youth in Ohio, where he was taught in local schools to resent compulsory education and by his parents to revere the Bible and hate slavery. As a boy, he herded cattle for General William Hull’s army during the war of 1812; later he served as foreman of his family’s tannery. In 1820, he married Dianthe Lusk, who bore him 7 children; 5 years later they moved to Pennsylvania to operate a tannery of their own.

Within a year after Dianthe’s death in 1831, Brown wed 16-year-old Mary Anne Day, by whom he fathered 13 more children. During the next 24 years Brown built and sold several tanneries, speculated in land sales, raised sheep, and established a brokerage for wool growers. Every venture failed, for he was too much a visionary, not enough a businessman. As his financial burdens multiplied, his thinking became increasingly metaphysical and he began to brood over the plight of the weak and oppressed. He frequently sought the company of blacks, for 2 years living in a freedmen’s community in North Elba, N. Y.

In time he became a militant abolitionist, a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, and the organizer of a self-protection league for free blacks and fugitive slaves. By the time he was 50, Brown was entranced by visions of slave uprisings, during which racists paid horribly for their sins, and he came to regard himself as commissioned by God to make that vision a reality. In August of 1855, he followed 5 of his sons to Kansas to help make the state a haven for anti-slavery settlers. The following year, his hostility toward slave-staters exploded after they burned and pillaged the free-state community of Lawrence.

Having organized a militia unit within his Osawatomie River colony, Brown led it on a mission of revenge. On the evening of May 23, 1856, he and 6 followers, including 4 of his sons, visited the homes of pro-slavery men along Pottawatomie Creek, dragged their unarmed inhabitants into the night, and hacked them to death with long-edged swords. At once, “Old Brown of Osawatomie” became a feared and hated target of slave-staters. In autumn 1856, temporarily defeated but still committed to his vision of a slave insurrection, Brown returned to Ohio.

There and during 2 subsequent trips to Kansas, he developed a grandiose plan to free slaves throughout the South. Provided with moral and financial support from prominent New England abolitionists, Brown began by raiding plantations in Missouri but accomplished little. In the summer of 1859, he transferred his operations to western Virginia, collected an army of 21 men, including 5 blacks, and on the night of October 16th raided the government armory and arsenal at Harpers Ferry. From there, he planned to arm the thousands of chattels who, learning of his crusade, would flock to his side.

Instead, numerous bands of militia and a company of U. S. Marines under Bvt. Col. Robert E. Lee hastened to the river village, where they trapped the raiders inside the fire-engine house and on the 18th stormed the building. The fighting ended with 10 of Brown’s people killed and 7 captured, Brown among them. After a sensational trial, he was found guilty of treason against Virginia and was hanged at Charlestown, amid much fanfare, on Dec. 2, 1859. The stately, fearless, unrepentant manner in which he comported himself in court and on the gallows made him a martyr in parts of the North.

One of the most colorful and controversial figures in Texas history, Sam Houston was born in Virginia on March 2, 1793. He spent much of his youth, however, in the mountains of Tennessee. There, young Houston became acquainted with the Cherokee Indians, and he spent much time with them, an activity which he much preferred over studies or working on the farm. With the outbreak of the second war with England, Houston enlisted as a private soldier, and was made sergeant of a company. He excelled in the military and quickly won the admiration of his men and his superiors.

After receiving three near-mortal wounds at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, he rose to the rank of first lieutenant before resigning in 1818 to study law. After a short time, he was admitted to the bar and practiced in Lebonon, Tennessee before running for public office. He sought and won public office and was elected to the US Congress in 1823 and again in 1825. In 1827, Houston was elected Governor of Tennessee by a large majority. While governor and after a brief marriage that ended unfavorably, Houston quietly resigned from Tennessee politics and returned to live with his longtime friends, the Cherokees.

There, he remained until 1832 when he moved to Texas along with a few friends. In Texas, Houston was elected delegate from Nacogdoches to the Convention of 1833 which met at San Felipe. From that time, Houston emerged as a prominent player in the affairs of Texas. In 1835, he was appointed general of the military district east of the Trinity. He became a member of the Consultation of 1835, and of the Convention which met at Washington on the Brazos in 1836 to declare independence from Mexico. It was there that Houston was elected commander-in-chief of the armies of Texas.

Houston immediately took control of the Texas forces after the fall of the Alamo and Goliad. He then proceeded to conducted the retreat of the army to the site of the Battle of San Jacinto, where on April 21, 1836, his force defeated Santa Anna and secured Texas long sought independence. In the fall of that year, Houston was elected the first President of the Republic of Texas. After serving his term as President, he served in the Congress of the Republic in 1839-40. Then in 1841, Houston was again voted by a large margin to be the head of the Texas government.

After statehood in 1845, Houston was elected Senator from Texas to the Congress of the United States. Still later, in 1859, Houston was elected to serve as Governor of the State of Texas. As Governor in 1861, Houston was strongly opposed to the secession of Texas from the Union. Because he was much in the minority on this issue, Houston was removed from office in March of 1861, ending his illustrious carrier in public service. Houston then retired to the privacy of his home at Huntsville, Texas, where he died in July of 1863. He is buried in Huntsville’s Oakwood Cemetery.

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