John Brown Chronology

John Brown

 By William Edward Burghardt Du Bois

John Brown and the Coppock brothers in a blog post here.

Description Accompanying A Museum Display Picture Of John Brown

The Journal Of Jacob Fowler

The journal of Jacob Fowler: narrating an adventure from Arkansas through the Indian Territory, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico, to the sources of Rio Grande del Norte, 1821-22 (Google eBook) [also here]:

Major Jacob Fowler's great-granddaughter (on her maternal side) was Mrs. Ida Symmes Coates (of Louisville, Kentucky), daughter of Americus Symmes, who was named in the introduction to the diary.  Her mother was Frances Scott [daughter of Major Chasteen Scott] and Ida's grandmother was Abigail Fowler, Jacob Fowler's only daughter.

Major Fowler was born in New York [or New Jersey in 1764] in 1765, and came to Kentucky early in life.  He was an accomplished surveyor.

About 1821 Fowler went further west from the Fort Smith, Arkansas, area.

...we arrive at the following approximately correct roster of the party : 

1. Colonel Hugh Glenn, in command. 

2. Major Jacob Fowler, the journalist, second in command. 

3. Robert Fowler, brother of Jacob Fowler. 

4. Baptiste Roy, interpreter. 

5. Baptiste Peno. (French name, no doubt misspelled.) 

6. George Douglas. 

7. Nathaniel Pryor, ex-Sergeant of Lewis and Clark's Expedition. 

8. Bono. (French name, no doubt misspelled, possibly Bonhomme.) 

9. Barbo. (French name, no doubt misspelled, possibly Barbu.) 

10. Lewis Dawson. (Fatally injured by a bear, Nov. 13, 1831; died Nov. 16.)

11. Taylor. 

12. Richard Walters. 

13. Eli Ward. 

14. Jesse Van Bieer. 

15. Slover. 

16. Simpson. 

17. Dudley Maxwell. 

18. Findley. 

19. Baptiste Moran. 

20. Paul, a negro belonging to Jacob Fowler.

The most interesting of the above names is that of Nathaniel Pryor, of whose identity with the sergeant of Lewis and Clark I have no doubt: see L. and C, ed. of 1893, p. 254, delete the query there, and add: Nathaniel Pryor of Kentucky became an Ensign of the U. S. Army Feb. 27, 1807; Second Lieutenant May 3, 1808; resigned April 1, 1810 ; was appointed First Lieutenant of the 44th Inf. Aug. 30, 1813; promoted to be Captain Oct. 1, 1814; and honorably discharged June 15, 1815. 

The Execution Of John Brown

On Dec 2 , 1859, John Brown was executed for leading the raid on the arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia).  One person in Brown's network of abolitionists was Dr. Alexander Ross.  See Dr. Ross's work with John Brown here.

From Dr. Ross's book:

Brown was accompanied by no ministers, he desiring no religious services either in the jail or on the scaffold.

On reaching the field where the gallows was erected, the prisoner said, " Why, are none but military allowed in the inclosure ? I am sorry citizens have been kept out." On reaching the gallows, he observed Mr. Hunter and Mayor Green standing near, to whom he said, " Gentlemen, good-by !" his voice not faltering.

Included in the Ross books is the poem, John Brown Of Osawatomie, by John Greenleaf Whittier.

A YouTube presentation from the John Brown Museum in Osawatomie, Kansas.

A Canadian Abolitionist In John Brown's Circle

From John Brown's Target Of Harper's Ferry

In the Recollections and experiences of an abolitionist, from 1855 to 1865, by Alexander Milton Ross, Dr. Ross recounted his dealings with the famous abolitionist, John Brown, including the telegram and letter transcribed below:

"I received a telegram from Boston informing me that Capt. John Brown, of Kansas, would meet me in Cleveland in a day or two, and that he desired to confer with me on a subject of importance, connected with the Anti-slavery cause."

A letter to Dr. Ross from the same John Brown:

CHAMBERSBURG, PENN., 

October 6th, 1859. 

DEAR FRIEND, 

I shall move about the last of this month. 

Can you help the cause in the way promised ? 

Address your reply to Isaac Smith, Chambers- 

burg, Penn. ****** 

Your friend, 

JOHN BROWN. 

Dr. Ross positioned himself in Richmond, Virginia, awaiting the outcome of John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry:

That John Brown had struck a blow that resounded throughout the Slave States was evident, from the number of telegraph despatches from all the Slave States, offering aid to crush the invasion. 

The experience of other compatriots of John Brown.