One of the few civilians to witness the hanging was journalist David Strother, better known by his pen name, Porte Crayon. He had covered "John Brown’s war" from the first shots at Harpers Ferry.

The hanging would make Brown an abolitionist martyr. John Brown's dedication to the abolition of slavery prompted Frederick Douglass to write the following: "Did John Brown fail? John Brown ...

John Brown was a man of action -- a man who would not be deterred from his mission of abolishing slavery. On October 16, 1859, he led 21 men on a raid of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry ...

During the summer of 1859, John Brown rented a farm in Maryland from the heirs of Booth Kennedy. A few miles outside Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), it was a good hiding spot for ...

To spend some time, she and her cohorts in the carriage sang a few of the war songs so popular those days, among them, "John Brown's Body," which contained the provocative words, "John Brown's ...

John Brown is born in Torrington, Connecticut. His father, Owen, a strict Calvinist, hated slavery and believed that holding humans in bondage was a sin against God. 1812 The War of 1812 ...

John Brown's obsession with ending slavery cast him as an abolitionist hero. In 1856, provoked by a bloody attack on Kansas settlers by “border ruffians,” Brown led a raid at Pottawatomie ...