Let us Talk of Many Things; of Books and Queens and Pirates, of Mystery and Kings...: My Coffee Pot Guest: Susan Higginbotham and John Brown's Women

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Who was John Brown?

Well, much as I hate to disappoint the Anglophiles here, he wasn't the Scottish gillie favored by the widowed Queen Victoria—that's another John Brown altogether. The John Brown I have in mind was the American abolitionist whose failed raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) helped pave the way to civil war and put an end to slavery in the United States. Depending on which historian one reads, he was either a madman, a terrorist, a martyr, or a hero, or some odd combination of all four. The matter has been debated since Brown's execution in 1859 and will probably continue to be for years hereafter. But rather than enter into that debate here, or to recite facts about Brown the public man, I would like to focus on the Brown I encountered when researching John Brown's Women—the private man.

Married twice, Brown fathered twenty children, twelve of whom preceded him to the grave. Nine died in childhood; one son was murdered in Kansas; two other sons were mortally wounded at Harpers Ferry. He was a strict father, especially with the children from his first marriage, but later in life, having been hosted by families who took a more lenient stance toward parenthood, he expressed regret for his earlier harshness. Nonetheless, children, his own and others, were fond of him. One daughter loved to root around in his pockets when he came home from a trip; another remembered him bringing home scraps of material for her to dress her doll. (Perhaps because of his Puritan heritage, Brown disliked bright colors, but he made an exception for the doll, who got a red dress.) In his last days, his jailer's small boy enjoyed visiting him in his cell.

Like many men in the nineteenth century, he followed a variety of professions. At one point (like Abraham Lincoln) he served as the local postmaster. He bred sheep and other livestock, earning prizes at county fairs ("splendid toys" he called them in a letter to his son that fails to conceal his pride). For a while, he operated a wool-commission house headquartered in Springfield, Massachusetts, but was overmastered by more powerful competitors. In an attempt to shore up his failing business, he took a consignment of wool to sell in England. "Their hogs are generally good, and mutton-sheep are almost everywhere as fat as pork," he reported to his son from London in 1849. "Tell my friend Middleton and wife that England affords me plenty of roast beef and mutton of the first water, and done up in a style not to be exceeded."

Brown was awkward around women and proposed to Mary, his second wife, by letter. But women rather liked him. Nellie Russell, who along with her husband, a Boston judge, sheltered Brown from the law for a time, was amused when Brown told her of some of the odd things he had eaten while roughing it in Kansas. Later, she recalled that one day, Brown perched her small daughter on his hand and told the child, "When you are a young lady and I am hanged, you can say that you stood on the hand of Old Brown."

Often away from home, Brown was a prolific letter-writer who issued instructions to his wife and children about mundane matters that one suspects they had already figured out for themselves. "The boys will need to wash & grease the teats of the old large bagged cow carefully, so they can milk her without quarreling with her," he wrote to his wife in 1850. It was a habit he never broke. "Why will you not say to me whether you had any crops mature this season?" he wrote to his wife from jail in Virginia. "Although I may never more intermeddle with your worldly affairs, I have not yet lost all interest in them." This interest extended beyond the grave. Reporting after his death, the New York Tribune noted, "On the back of a letter Brown left for his wife minute directions of the route she should take with his body, giving the names of the hotels, and other needful things, and among others was marked against Vergennes [a town in Vermont], 'buy a little fish.'"

And she did.

[John Brown from the Library of Congress]

John Brown's Women: A Novel

By Susan Higginbotham

As the United States wrestles with its besetting sin—slavery—abolitionist John Brown is growing tired of talk. He takes actions that will propel the nation toward civil war and thrust three courageous women into history.

Wealthy Brown, married to John Brown's oldest son, eagerly falls in with her husband's plan to settle in Kansas. Amid clashes between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers, Wealthy's adventure turns into madness, mayhem, and murder.

Fifteen-year-old Annie Brown is thrilled when her father summons her to the farm he has rented in preparation for his raid. There, she guards her father's secrets while risking her heart.

Mary Brown never expected to be the wife of John Brown, much less the wife of a martyr. When her husband's daring plan fails, Mary must travel into hostile territory, where she finds the eyes of the nation riveted upon John—and upon her.

Spanning three decades, John Brown's Women is a tale of love and sacrifice, and of the ongoing struggle for America to achieve its promise of liberty and justice for all.

Trigger Warnings:

Deaths of young children through illness or accidents (not graphically described); implied heavy petting involving a willing minor.

Buy Links:

Amazon: https://books2read.com/u/4jP27l

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Susan Higginbotham is the author of a number of historical novels set in medieval and Tudor England and, more recently, nineteenth-century America, including The Traitor's Wife, The Stolen Crown, Hanging Mary, and The First Lady and the Rebel. She and her family, human and four-footed, live in Maryland, just a short drive from where John Brown made his last stand. When not writing or procrastinating, Susan enjoys traveling and collecting old photographs.

Social Media Links:

Website: www.susanhigginbotham.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/S_Higginbotham

Facebook Profile: https://www.facebook.com/susan.higginbotham

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorSusanHigginbotham

Amazon Author Page:

https://www.amazon.com/Susan-Higginbotham/e/B0028OC748

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/260080.Susan_Higginbotham