CHAPTER VIII NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS Ar Tabor, Iowa, John Brown, weak and ill, met with a hearty reception at the hands of that colony of Ohioans. Under the leadership of George B. Gaston, for four years a missionary among the Pawnee Indians, and the Rev. John Todd, there had been founded at Tabor, in 1848, a community which was intended to be another Oberlin.1 Most of its settlers came from that earnestly religious and bravely anti-slavery town. They were steeped in its Abolition views and in sympathy with its protests against hyper-Calvinism, — in short, brought with them the Oberlin devotion to truth and liberty. It was the most congenial soil upon which John Brown had set foot since his departure from Ohio. Here all men and women thought his own thoughts and spoke his own words. Though it was then but a straggling prairie town of twenty-five houses, with little of the present beauty of its wide and richly shaded streets, Tabor was ever an attractive haven for John Brown and his sons. On the overland route into Kansas, it was far enough from the Territory to be free from disorder, and the arriving and departing emigrant trains gave it an especial interest and kept it in touch with the storm-centre of the nation. News from Kansas came regularly, while the scattered pro-slavery sympathizers in the neighborhood, who acted as spies for the Missourians, or those who passed through en route to the Territory, added zest to the town's life, particularly when the Southern visitors were in search of the slaves who passed on to safety and freedom by the underground route. This long counted Tabor one of its important far Western stations. Mrs. Gaston has left the following account of conditions in Tabor during the time of John Brown's visit: "That summer and autumn our houses, before too full, were much overfilled, and our comforts shared with those passing to and from Kansas to secure it to Freedom. When houses would hold no more, woodsheds were temporized for bedrooms, where the sick and dying were cared for. Barns also were fixed for sleeping rooms. Every place where a bed could be put or a blanket thrown down was at once so occupied. There were comers and goers all times of day or night meals at all hours —many free hotels, perhaps entertaining angels unawares. After battles they were here for rest - before for preparation. General Lane once stayed three weeks secretly while it was reported abroad that he was back in Indiana for recruits and supplies, which came ere long, consisting of all kinds of provisions, Sharps rifles, powder and lead. A cannon packed in corn made its way through the enemy's lines, and ammunition of all kinds in clothing and kitchen furniture, etc., etc. Our cellars contained barrels of powder and boxes of rifles. Often our chairs, tables, beds and such places were covered with what weapons every one carried about him, so that if one needed and got time to rest a little in the day time, we had to remove the Kansas furniture, or rest with loaded revolvers, cartridge boxes and bowie knives piled around them, and boxes of swords under the bed."" Here John Brown stayed about a week after his arrival from Kansas. Here he stored the arms he had brought with him, and this place he chose as the coming headquarters of the band of one hundred "volunteer-regulars" for whom he now planned to raise funds in the East to the amount of twenty thousand dollars, and here actual training for war-service against the forces of slavery was soon to begin. For this was the plan which John Brown's brain had now formulated. The peace of Geary he did not value; indeed, he unjustly denounced the Governor at this period as having been unpardonably slow in reaching Lawrence with the Federal troops, when that town was menaced by Atchison and Reid. He wanted a secret unpaid force that would subsist as best it might between periods of activity, but be ready with rifle, pistol and sword to come together to repel invasion, or even to undertake a counter-invasion. If he rightly judged that hostilities between the two contending parties in Kansas were not yet over, he overestimated the likelihood of a fresh outbreak when the spring should come again. By then he hoped to return to Kansas with plenty of arms and ammunition, and recruit the men he wanted. After his brief stay for recuperation, John Brown set out over the overland route to Chicago by way of Iowa City and Springdale, arriving there about the 22d or 23d of October with his sons, Jason and John Brown, Jr., who had preceded him from Tabor. The father reported at once at the offices of the National Kansas Committee, where his presence aroused great interest. He was soon asked to accompany the train of "freight" for the Free State cause then being conducted through Iowa to Kansas by Dr. J. P. Root, in order to advise that leader. "Capt. Brown," wrote General J. D. Webster to Dr. Root on October 25, “says the immediate introduction of the supplies is not of much consequence compared to the danger of losing them." On the next day, Horace White, then assistant secretary of the National Kansas Committee, later editor of the Chicago Tribune and New York Evening Post, wrote to him this note: 3 OFFICE NATIONAL KANSAS COMMITTEE, CAPTAIN BROWN,- We expect Mr. Arny, our General Agent just from Kansas to be in tomorrow morning. He has been in the territory particularly to ascertain the condition of certain affairs. for our information. I know he will very much regret not having seen you. If it is not absolutely essential for you to go on tonight, I would recommend you to wait & see him. I shall confer with Col. Dickey on this point. Rev. Theodore Parker of Boston is at the Briggs House, & wishes very much to see you. Yours truly, HORACE WHITE, Assist. Sec., etc. If you wish one or two of those rifles, please call at our office between 3 & 5 this afternoon, or between 7 & 8 this evening. W. It is the testimony of Salmon Brown that his father did turn back and return to Tabor in the wake of the Root train. This had a special interest for him, because with it went his two sons Salmon and Watson, who had received, when digging potatoes at North Elba, the news of the battle of Osawatomie, and of a speech by Martin White boasting of his having killed Frederick Brown. The next morning they were on their way back to Kansas for the avowed purpose of killing White, Salmon going to the Territory for the second time, Watson for the first. Assisted by Gerrit Smith, Frederick Douglass and other friends (to whom naturally they did not reveal their |