Volume 3, No. 3 (Winter 2000) -- Black History Month Issue

John Brown arrived for the first time in Lawrence during the Wakarusa War on Dec. 7, 1855. That day, he and four of his sons, viewed the body of the Ohio abolitionist Thomas W. Barer, the first Free State martyr, as it lay in the Free State Hotel. Brown was made captain in the 5th Regiment, 1st Brigade of Kansas Volunteers. His company was the Liberty Guards.

• Following the Sack of Lawrence, May 21, 1856, Brown, four of his sons and two other associates retaliated on May 24, committing the Pottawatomie Massacre, killing with broadswords five Pro-slavery settlers near Lane in present-day Franklin County.

• Brown's forces fought in the first regular battle in Kansas between Free State and Pro-slavery forces at Black Jack, three miles east of present-day Baldwin. One of the trophies of battle Brown kept was Pate's Bowie knife, which Brown later showed a Connecticut blacksmith, asking if he could make "a thousand like it, to be fastened to poles six feet long." Thus originated the famous pikes of Harpers Ferry. Brown planned to use these as weapons in a massive slave uprising throughout the South.

• Following the Battle of Black Jack, Brown's camp was disbanded by federal troops under the command of Col. Edwin V. Sumner. Another officer present was J.E.B. Stuart, who, in a twist of fate, would meet John Brown again during the storming of the engine house at Harpers Ferry, Oct. 18, 1859.

• Following the Battle of Osawatomie on Aug. 30, 1856, where Brown's son was killed, Brown returned to Lawrence. On Sept. 14, he was among the defenders during the Siege of Lawrence, as 2700 Border Ruffians threatened to invade the town. He gave a speech on tactics to a large gathering of armed Lawrence citizens as he stood on a dry goods box opposite the original Lawrence Post Office. A plaque commemorating the event can be seen at 636 Massachusetts.

• In 1857, after a lengthy absence from the territory, Brown returned to Kansas. In early November, he stayed at the Edmund B. Whitman farm, a few miles northwest of Lawrence, and began to gather recruits there and near Topeka for his Harpers Ferry Raid. Among them were John E. Cook, John H. Kagi and Aaron Stevens.

• In late January 1859, Brown passed through Lawrence for the last time, escorting to Canada along the Underground Railroad, twelve African Americans he had liberated from Missouri slaveholders.