Volcano in Eruption

Volcano in EruptionThe decade of the 1850' s was marked by bitter political strife in the United States.The Compro mise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Dred Scott Decision, the Underground Railroad, and the Fugitive Slave Law, these were subjects of bitter editorial debate in Iowa as well as in the nation.The tempo of this debate reached a climax with John Brown s raid at Harper s Ferry and the subsequent execution of this fiery abolitionist and his followers in December, 1859.For Iowans the story continued into 1860 as the Governor of Vir ginia endeavored to extradite a young Iowa Q ua ker -Barclay Coppoc -who had participated in the raid on Harper's Ferry.Between 1855 and 1859 John Brown was a ver itable volcano in eruption.Born in Torrington, Connecticut, on M ay 9, 1800, Brown was fiftyfive years old when he began his career of vio lence that ended on the gallows.His father, Owen Brown, of sturdy New England stock, had plied many trades, moved frequently, and was del scribed as a man of "much piety, an abolitionist, and an agent of the underground railroad."On his mother s side Brown s ancestry was not so good -Ruth (Mills) Brown was insane for a number of years and died insane, as did her moth er before her.Other members of the Mills family were similarly afflicted.John Brown was twice married.His first wife, Dianthe Lusk, appears to have had "mental aber rations before her death in 1831.She bore him seven children, two of whom were of unsound mind.His second wife, M ary Anne Day, was sixteen and "of robust physique" at the time of her marriage in 1832.She bore him thirteen chil dren in twenty-one years.John Brown had little education, schools always meaning confinement and restraint."He pre ferred the free life of the wilderness and was never happier than when permitted as a youth to drive beef cattle to military posts during the W ar of 1812.Later he worked at the tanners trade with his father.In 1825 John Brown moved to Richmond, Pennsylvania, where he set up his own tannery.This was the first of ten migrations be fore his adventures in Kansas.Between 1825 and 1855 he established and sold tanneries, speculated in land, and engaged in wool growing.From first to last his business career was replete with fail ures.An abolitionist like his father, Brown had used