John Brown, Jr. to Frederick Douglass, February 26, 1878

JOHN BROWN, JR., TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Put in Bay Island, Ohio.^{1Put-in-Bay is a small village located on South Bass Island in Lake Erie, three miles off the shore of Ohio’s Ottawa County (previously Huron County). Put-in-Bay was the base for Commodore Matthew Perry’s small fleet that defeated a British naval force in 1813 and won control of Lake Erie for the Americans. Brown purchased a ten-acre farm at Put-in-Bay shortly after resigning his commission in the Union army in 1862. Seltzer, Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer, 1535; Hinton, John Brown and His Men, 14.} 26 Feb[ruar]y 1878.

FREDK DOUGLASS ESQ

WASHINGTON D.C.

MY DEAR FRIEND:—

Your kind favor of the 20th Inst. received.

By tomorrow’s mail I shall send a reply to a letter recd. by me from Hon. John Cochrane of New York; I have requested him to publish my letter as I think I may contribute towards a settlement of the question in dispute.^{2John Brown, Jr.’s letter to John Cochrane, in fact, corroborated much of Octavius B. Frothingham’s account of Gerrit Smith’s intimate involvement in John Brown’s plot. The younger Brown acknowledged that Smith might not have known that the Harpers Ferry Arsenal was Brown’s intended target, but he believed Smith knew that his father had planned an armed invasion of the Appalachian regions of the South in order to raid plantations and help slaves escape. Cochrane had that letter published in the New York Tribune, and it was reprinted widely. Brown’s letter to Frothingham, dated 7 March 1878, was also published in the press. New York Tribune, 23 March 1878; New York Times, 23 March 1878; Chicago Tribune, 1 April 1878; Charles Edwin Perkins, “A Great Citizen: A Life of Gerrit Smith,” Unity, 74: 9–12 (3 September 1914).} Shall send by same mail a copy to Rev. O B. Frothingham asking him to publish my letter in case Gen. Cochrane should not do <so> or publish such parts only as might seem to sustain his view of the question.

I have no idea however, that Gen. Cochrane would do this.

My long silence of twenty years in regard to this matter, is, so far as my feeling is concerned, most reluctantly broken. Perhaps it is for the best. I certainly have not sought any controversy over the grave of my dear, noble friend, Gerrit Smith.

It affords me great pleasure to get a word from you once more.

Hope it may not be the last.

With kindest regards, I remain ever,

Faithfully your friend.

JOHN BROWN JR.

ALS: General Correspondence File, reel3, frames 234–35, FD Papers, DLC.