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2 December 1859, Friday; ca. 2:30 p.m.
Concord, Massachusetts; Town Hall
"The Martrydom of John Brown"
[Back to Calendar of Lectures]
NARRATIVE OF EVENT: On 1 November 1859, the day
Thoreau delivered his John Brown lecture in Boston, the Executive Committee of the
American Anti-Slavery Society met in Boston and adopted the following resolution, which
was widely reprinted in Boston’s non-Democratic daily newspapers the following day:
Resolved, That it is recommended
to the friends of impartial freedom throughout the Free States, in case of the execution
of Capt. John Brown, now on trial for his life in Virginia, to observe that tragical
event, on the day of its occurrence, in such manner as by them may be deemed most
appropriate in their various localities,—whether by public meetings and addresses,
the adoption of resolutions, private conferences, or any other justifiable mode of
action,—for the furtherance of the Anti-Slavery cause and renewedly to consecrate
themselves to the patriotic and Christian work of effecting the abolition of that most
dangerous, unnatural, cruel and impious system of slavery, which is the fruitful source of
all our sectional heart-burnings and conflicts, which powerfully and increasingly tends to
promote servile insurrections and civil war, which cannot be more truly or more
comprehensively described than as "the sum of all villainies," which is a
burning disgrace and fearful curse to the whole country, and by the speedy extinction of
which, alone, can the land be saved from violence, blood, and utter demoralization.
In reporting this resolution in its own columns on 4 November, the Liberator,
which was an unofficial organ of the American Anti-Slavery Society, further urged that
"there be a tolling of the bells for one hour" on the day of Brown’s
execution, which had by then been scheduled for 2 December 1859. As it happened, the day
the resolution was adopted, Brown’s trial ended in Virginia, and the judge sentenced
him to death by hanging—all of which the newspapers in Massachusetts reported the
next day, 2 November.
On 9 November, Thoreau visited Bronson
Alcott and suggested that "someone from the North should see [Virginia’s] Gov.
Wise, or write concerning Capt. Brown’s character and motives, to influence the
Governor in his favor." Alcott believed that Thoreau was himself "the man to
write" such a letter, "or Emerson." But Alcott also concluded his diary
entry for that day with the less hopeful, more realistic pronouncement, "Slavery must
have its way, and Wise must do its bidding on peril of his own safety with the rest."1 Ten days later Thoreau, accompanied by Ricketson,
dined with the Alcott family and, according to Alcott, talked "truly and
enthusiastically about Brown, denouncing the Union, President, the States, and Virginia
particularly." Thoreau also reported on his fruitless efforts to have his earlier
talk, now titled "A Plea for Capt. John Brown," published as a pamphlet and
"Sold for the benefit of Capt. Brown’s Family."2
He wrote in a letter to Calvin Greene dated 24 November, "I exerted myself
considerably to get the . . . discourse printed & sold for the benefit of Brown’s
family—but the publishers are afraid of pamphlets & it is now too late" (C,
p. 566).
Whether or not moved by the earlier
resolution adopted by the Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society,
Thoreau took what Alcott was to call a "prominent part" in planning a
commemorative service on the day of Brown’s execution.3
He apparently contacted the town clerk and reserved Concord’s Town Hall for the
evening of 28 November, when he scheduled a preparatory meeting, and for the afternoon of
2 December, the time of the commemorative service itself. Prior to the middle of November
he had begun looking over his "extracts of the noblest poetry" in order to
select passages that he thought would be most applicable to Brown’s position (J,
12:446); he was still looking on 18 November, when he reported in his journal, "I
looked into the Church of England liturgy, printed near the beginning of the last century,
to find a service applicable to the case of Captain Brown" (J, 12:448).
On the evening of 28 November, about one
hundred and fifty people gathered in Concord’s Town Hall "to make arrangements
for celebrating by appropriate services the day of Capt. Brown’s execution."
Thoreau addressed the crowd at that time, as did Simon Brown, Dr. Josiah Bartlett, John
Shepard Keyes, and Emerson. Thoreau, Emerson, Brown, and Keyes were chosen a committee to
prepare the services.4 At some point during the
meeting a vote was taken to toll the bell of the First Parish Meetinghouse during the
service on 2 December, and one of the five speakers—perhaps Thoreau—even
suggested "that the flag ought to be raised upon the Liberty pole, half mast and union
down, which would . . . better represent the present condition of our country."5
In his capacity as a member of the
committee, Thoreau on 29 November applied to the selectmen of Concord for permission to
toll the bell, and sometime that day he also met with Alcott "on the Brown
matter"—a meeting that Edmund A. Schofield asserts was to prove fatal to
Thoreau, for Alcott had a serious cold, which Thoreau probably caught from him and which
was soon to develop into bronchitis.6 The selectmen
deferred their decision until the following night, as Thoreau mentions in his journal
entry for that day, 30 November:
Nov. 30. I am one of a committee
of four, viz. Simon Brown (Ex-Lieutenant-Governor), R. W. Emerson, myself, and John
Keyes (late High Sheriff), instructed by a meeting of citizens to ask liberty of the
selectmen to have the bell of the first parish tolled at the time Captain Brown is being
hung, and while we shall be assembled in the town house to express our sympathy with him.
I applied to the selectmen yesterday. Their names are George M. Brooks, Barzillai Hudson,
and Julius Smith. After various delays they at length answer me to-night that they
"are uncertain whether they have any control over the bell, but that, in any case,
they will not give their consent to have the bell tolled." Beside their private
objections, they are influenced by the remarks of a few individuals. Dr. Bartlett tells me
that Rockwood Hoar said he "hoped no such foolish thing would be done," and he
also named Stedman Buttrick, John Moore, Cheney (and others added Nathan Brooks, senior,
and Francis Wheeler) as strongly opposed to it; said that he had heard "five
hundred" (!) damn me for it, and that he had no doubt that if it were done some
counter-demonstration would be made, such as firing minute-guns. The doctor himself is
more excited than anybody, for he has the minister under his wing. Indeed, a considerable
part of Concord are in the condition of Virginia to-day,—afraid of their own shadows.
(J, 12:457-58)
The list of opponents mentioned by Dr.
Bartlett and others—and particularly Bartlett’s reference to "five
hundred" who had damned Thoreau—strongly suggests that Thoreau was the speaker
at the 28 November meeting who had suggested "that the flag ought to be raised upon
the Liberty pole, half mast and union down." Ostensibly, his fellow
Concordians would not damn him in particular for carrying out the vote of the meeting and
asking to have the bell of the First Parish rung during the commemorative service. In any
case, Dr. Bartlett’s remarks to Thoreau, and Thoreau’s own observation about a
considerable number of his fellow townspeople being afraid of their shadows, are ample
indications of the high level of tension that existed in Concord—and, indeed, around
the country—during the days leading up to Brown’s execution. The newspapers of
those weeks are rife with reports of local, regional, and sectional bickering,
particularly between Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and abolitionists. As
historians have long pointed out, Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry and the ensuing
distrust and animosity it sowed clearly escalated the pace at which the country careened
toward civil war.
On 30 November and again on 1 December,
Thoreau met to discuss the commemorative service with Emerson, Alcott, and very likely
several others, including Keyes and Brown, the other members of the four-man planning
committee. During those two days, according to Alcott, the decision was made not "to
have any speeches made on the occasion, but have selected appropriate passages from
Brown’s words, from the poets, and from the Scriptures . . . read by Thoreau,
Emerson, and myself, chiefly; and the selection and arrangement is ours." It was
further arranged that Alcott would "read the Martyr Service, Thoreau selections from
the poets, and Emerson from Brown’s words." Sanborn had written a dirge for the
occasion, which would be sung, and the Reverend E. H. Sears of Wayland would offer prayer.7 Keyes later recalled, "I had insisted at the
preliminary talks that all speakers should be confined to reading other people’s
writings as there was too much danger of our giving way to treasonable utterances if we
allowed ourselves to speak our own sentiments, and the plan was cordially assented
to."8 And later still Keyes recollected the
same agreement: "It had been arranged that all who took part should read suitable
selections from books, not trust to their own expression of indignation lest in the
intense excitement of the occasion language might be used that would make trouble."9 Thoreau had arranged to have a broadside printed for
the event titled "Martyrdom of John Brown. Exercises at the Town Hall, in Concord, on
Friday, December 2nd, 1859, at 2 o’clock p.m." The broadside presented a sort of
agenda for the meeting—"Music, Prayer, Hymn, ‘Go to the grave in all thy
glorious prime,’ Reading of Pertinent Passages, Selections from Brown’s Last
Words, Service for the Death of a Martyr"—and the text of Sanborn’s dirge.10 Thoreau also hired Frank Pierce and his father to
move a piano into Town Hall so that it could be used for the occasion (Days, p.
420). The day before the commemorative service, the Boston Daily Evening Traveller
printed the following letter, which further suggests the high level of tension that
existed in Concord on the eve of the meeting:
There is some prospect that the
citizens of Old Concord will be permitted to hear the mournful sound of tolling bells on
next Friday, a vote to that effect having been made last Monday evening, when about 150 of
those who sympathize with John Brown, met in the Town Hall.
Since the meeting there have been some
expressions against such a proceeding, and so we shall have to wait and see what will be
the result. One speaker thought that the flag ought to be raised upon the Liberty pole,
half mast and union down, which would, he thought, better represent the condition
of the country. There is no question but that any attempt to thus treat the flag of our
country will be strongly opposed.
The weather in Concord the morning of 2
December 1859 was warm, spring-like, but oppressively humid. Low, steely clouds presaged
the cold front that would move into New England that evening. Either during the night of 1
December or very early on 2 December, a group of Concord’s conservatives hung a
life-size effigy of John Brown on a large tree in front of Town Hall. Attached to the body
was the following document:
Last Will and Testament of Old John Brown, of Jefferson County, Virginia.
I bequeath to Hon. Simon Brown my
execution robe, the emblem of spotless purity and an unswerving politician.
I bequeath to Hon. John S. Keyes my
execution cord, made of material warranted to last to hang all the aiders and abettors of
Old John Brown.
I bequeath to H. D. Thoreau, Esq., my body
and soul, he having eulogized my character and actions at Harper’s Ferry above the
Saints in Heaven.
I bequeath to my beloved friend, Charles
Bowers, my old boots, and emblems of the souls of those I have murdered.
I bequeath to Ralph Waldo Emerson all my
personal property, and my execution cap, which contains nearly all the brains I ever had.
I bequeath to Dr. Josiah Bartlett the
superintending of the ringing of the bells, and flags at half-mast, union down.11
As soon as it was discovered, the effigy was cut down, and both the effigy and the will
were destroyed, although someone—likely one of the perpetrators—saved a copy of
the will, which was printed in the Boston Post the following day along with a
synopsis of the day’s events. Thoreau later remarked in his journal, "Certain
persons disgraced themselves by hanging Brown in effigy in this town on the 2d. I was glad
to know that the only four whose names I heard mentioned in connection with it had not
been long resident here, and had done nothing to secure the respect of the town" (J,
13:15).
At the appointed hour, Thoreau and other
Brown sympathizers, including "many from the adjoining towns," met in
Concord’s Town Hall.12 Young Augusta Bowers
was one of the many who attended, and to her it seemed that "everyone [in Concord]
attended, young and old."13 John S. Keyes
later recalled that the hall was "crowded."14
The Boston Post opined the next day that "The meeting was composed chiefly of
ladies," but because the Post was strongly opposed to Brown and expressions of
sympathy for him, its claim ought to be regarded with some skepticism. A Concord
correspondent to the Boston Atlas and Daily Bee asserted in a letter dated 2
December but not published till the following day that the meeting "was pretty fully
attended by most of the earnest thinking men and women of the town."
After the opening prayer by the Reverend
Sears, the hymn was sung. Thoreau then rose and spoke for a considerable time. If the
extant papers from the service correctly reflect what was said at the time, Thoreau read
just ten sentences of his own: a four-sentence introduction and the remaining six
sentences by way of transition between the extracts he had selected to read from the
poetry of Marvell, Shirley, and Raleigh. Someone else, probably Emerson, had selected
passages from Collins, Schiller, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Chapman, and Wotton for Thoreau to
read; and he finished his performance by reading Emerson’s translation of a passage
from Tacitus’s De Vita Ivli Agricolae.15
After Thoreau read, Emerson, Bowers, Keyes, and Alcott read a variety of selections; and
the service ended after the audience sang Sanborn’s dirge while standing. Thoreau
noted in the papers for the service assembled afterward that some passages Alcott had
selected and an original poem Sanborn had written for the occasion "were omitted for
want of time."16
But do the papers from the service reflect
what was said during the service? More to the point, during his performance, did Thoreau
only read the ten sentences of his own in addition to the poetry extracts and translation?
Perhaps not. John S. Keyes has left the following testimonies, which together—and
with Thoreau’s own remark about other material having to be "omitted for want of
time"—suggest that Thoreau may have departed from his text and violated the
agreement he had made by speaking his mind at some length during the commemorative
service:
This reminds me that I forgot the John Brown excitement of last year, and I must recall
one of its peculiar episodes in Concord. When the day of his execution arrived, we had
arranged for a gathering in the Town Hall, and had a wonderful meeting. I had insisted at
the preliminary talks that all speakers should be confined to reading other people’s
writings as there was too much danger of our giving way to treasonable utterances if we
allowed ourselves to speak our own sentiments, and the plan was cordially assented to. The
hall was crowded, I think Hoar or Fay in the chair, Mr. Reynolds read from the Bible, Mr.
Emerson from Milton, Mr. Alcott from some heathen philosopher, I read the execution of
Montrose from Aytoun’s ballads, and never saw a more effective impression made on an
audience than did those stirring lines. D. H. Thoreau with his usual egotism broke the
agreement and said some rambling incoherent sentences that might have been unfortunate if
they had not been unintelligible. Sanborn read something and so did Hoar, but I’ve
forgotten what. A hymn was sung, perhaps written by Channing, and the ceremonies serious
and sober as a funeral were over. All of us knew Old John, all admired him, and many
rejoiced in his attack on slavery; and there was a profound feeling of sorrow for his
death.17
One of [Thoreau’s] last public
appearances was at the meeting of the citizens of Concord to hold funeral exercises on the
day of the Execution of John Brown and was characteristic. It had been arranged that all
who took part should read suitable selections from books, not trust to their own
expression of indignation lest in the intense excitement of the occasion language might be
used that would make trouble; Mr. Emerson, Mr. Alcott, the minister & others all
conformed to the agreement but Thoreau made a long speech of his own ideas and opinions!18
According to the Boston Post of
the next day, rumors circulated around Concord after the meeting "to the effect that
an attempt would be made to toll the bells. . . ." But no bells were tolled in
Concord that day, and no flags there were flown at half mast or union down. Alcott, for
one, was content. "It was more fitting," he wrote in his diary that evening,
"to signify our sorrow in the subdued tones, and silent, than by any clamor of
steeples and the awakening of angry feelings." The service, Alcott thought, had been
"affecting and impressive; distinguished by modesty, simplicity, and earnestness;
worthy alike of the occasion and of the man."19
ADVERTISEMENTS, REVIEWS, AND
RESPONSES: In addition to the responses mentioned above, brief articles mentioning the
commemorative service appeared on 3 December in the Boston Daily Journal, the Boston
Daily Evening Traveller, and the Boston Evening Transcript. On 5 December the Springfield
Daily Republican printed an account of the service, as did the New York Evening
Express of 6 December. On 9 December the Liberator published Sanborn’s
"Dirge," and the next day a report of the service appeared in the (New York) National
Anti-Slavery Standard.
DESCRIPTION OF TOPIC: The text
Thoreau read is "Martyrdom of John Brown" in RP, pp. 139-43, but that
text contains Thoreau’s own translation of Tacitus rather than the Emerson
translation Thoreau actually read at the commemorative service, which is at NNPM, MA 884,
with the other surviving papers of the service.
Notes
1. Alcott, Journals,
p. 321. [Back to Text]
2. Alcott, Journals,
p. 322; Thoreau had written "Sold for the benefit of Capt. Brown’s Family"
in pencil just below the title in the MS paged "1," HM 13203, CSmH, but later he
cancelled the sentence in ink. [Back
to Text]
3. Alcott, Journals,
p. 322. Alcott’s remark about Thoreau’s prominent role in planning the
commemorative services on 2 December is corroborated by the extant papers used at the
services, MA 884, NNPM, "the different sections and the different readers" of
which, as Wendell Glick has pointed out, "are designated by Thoreau in his own hand,
though others (including Emerson and his daughter Ellen) did some of the copying" (RP,
p. 356). [Back to Text]
4. Alcott, Journals,
p. 322. [Back to Text]
5. Quoted from a column
written by one "Sigma" in the Boston Daily Evening Traveller of 1
December 1859; rpt., Michael Meyer, "Discord in Concord on Day of Brown’s
Hanging," Thoreau Society Bulletin, no. 146 (Winter 1979): 2.
"Sigma" seems to have been a resident of Concord with no great sympathy for the
views of Thoreau or other supporters of John Brown. [Back to Text]
6. J, 12:457;
Alcott, MS "Diary for 1859," entry of 29 November, MH (*59M-308); Edmund A.
Schofield, "The Origin of Thoreau’s Fatal Illness," Thoreau Society
Bulletin, no. 171 (Spring 1985): 2. [Back to Text]
7. Alcott, Journals,
p. 322. [Back to Text]
8. "John Shepard
Keyes’s Unpublished Account of the Exercises in Memory of John Brown, Concord,
Massachusetts, December 2, 1859," Thoreau Society Bulletin, no. 143 (Spring
1978): 4. [Back to Text]
9. "John Shepard
Keyes on Thoreau," Thoreau Society Bulletin, no. 103 (Spring 1968): 2-3. [Back to Text]
10. Walter Harding,
"A Rare Thoreau Broadside," Thoreau Society Bulletin, no. 54 (Winter
1956): 2-3. [Back to Text]
11. Quoted from a column
titled "In Concord" in the Boston Post, 3 December 1859. [Back to Text]
12. Alcott, Journals,
p. 323. [Back to Text]
13. "The
Reminiscences of Augusta Bowers French," Thoreau Society Bulletin, no 130
(Winter 1975): 6. These reminiscences were recorded on 2 November 1926, sixty-seven years
later. The full sentence we quote from reads: "At the time when John Brown was hung,
there was a mass meeting held in the town hall, which everyone attended, young and
old—" [Back to Text]
14. "John Shepard
Keyes’s Unpublished Account," 4. [Back to Text]
15. "Martyrdom of
John Brown," in Echoes of Harper’s Ferry, ed. James Redpath (Boston:
Thayer and Eldridge, 1860), p. 444; RP, pp. 356-57. Redpath’s account of the
commemorative service in Concord on 2 December 1859 appears in Echoes of Harper’s
Ferry, pp. 437-54. [Back to Text]
16. MA 884, NNPM. [Back to Text]
17. "John Shepard
Keyes’s Unpublished Account," 4. [Back to Text]
18. "John Shepard
Keyes on Thoreau," 2-3. [Back
to Text]
19. Alcott, Journals,
p. 323. [Back to Text] |