[
54]
ministers because he thought them culpably indifferent to the sin of slavery, was intimate with
Mr. Brown, and they sympathized in their anti-slavery ideas.
Mr. Brown used to talk much on the subject, and had the reputation of being quite ulra.
His bookkeeper tells me that he and his eldest son used to discuss slavery by the hour in his counting room, and that he used to say that it was right for slaves to kill their masters and escape, and thought slaveholders were guilty of a very great wickedness.
He says
Brown had lived in
Ohio forty years, and had been out there from
Connecticut several times on foot; that he was familiar with the region about
Harper's Ferry, and knew the wool growers in all that part of the country.
Since
Brown went to
Kansas he has been in town several times.
I have seen him repeatedly.
Once he called on me to inquire whether the Emigrant Aid Company would assist him to purchase arms for the protection of himself and his neighbors.
I told him he could get no aid from them.
I understood he afterwards solicited subscriptions from individuals.
I never knew how he succeeded.
He was here again last summer, and called on me, and told me what he had been doing in
Kansas.
His story was such that I told him I did not think he had done wrong.
He professed to have acted solely for the protection of himself and his neighbors, and said he went to
Missouri to help the slaves escape, merely to frighten the Missourians, and keep them from going to
Kansas to disturb the people, and that he was successful in it. I cannot learn that he spoke to any one in this region of his
Harper's Ferry enterprise, and do not believe that he did. A lady here asked him if he was not going to lead a quiet life hereafter, and he replied that he should
unless he had a call from the Lord.
