[n.p.] 7 Dec[ember] 1856.¹Although Douglass supplied no year in dating this letter, John Brown was known to have passed through Rochester in December 1856 while traveling east from Kansas to raise funds in New York and New England. Franklin B. Sanborn, ed., , 2d. ed. (Boston 1891), 341, 443; Oates, , 224; Villard, , 270, 674.

My DEAR CAPTAIN BROWNBrown, John

John Brown (1800-1859). Born in Torrington, Connecticut, Brown grew up in Hudson, Ohio. After receiving a rudimentary education, he attempted, but failed at, careers as a tanner, wool dealer, and farmer. Long a supporter of emancipation, Brown became more militant in his antislavery activities after passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. In 1855 Brown followed four of his sons to Kansas, where he became a leader of the armed opposition to the admission of the territory as a slave state. His participation in the massacre of proslavery settlers at Pottawatomie Creek in May 1856 made him a nationally known figure. In 1857 Brown secretly began to recruit men and raise funds for a plan to establish a base in the southern Appalachian Mountains from which to raid plantations and free slaves. Brown's plotting culminated in the unsuccessful attack by a small band on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in October 1859. Captured and tried for treason under Virginia law, he was executed on 2 December 1859 and immediately became a martyr to many northerners. Stephen Oates, To Purge This land with Blood: A Biography of John Brown (New York, 1970); Richard O. Boyer, The Legend of John Brown: A Biography and a History (New York, 1973); ACAB, 1:404-07; NCAB, 2:307-08; DAB, 3:131-34. .²John Brown.—

I am very busy at home. Will you please come up with my son FredDouglass, Frederick Jr. (Douglass's son)

Frederick Douglass, Jr. (1842-92), was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, the second son of Frederick and Anna Murray Douglass. Throughout his adult life Frederick, Jr., struggled to achieve success within the same industries as his famous father. For years he tried unsuccessfully to obtain membership in the typographical union; he did, however, work with several newspapers, including the New National Era. He was also a frequent contributor to other newspapers, such as the Detroit Plaindealer, the New York Times, and Baltimore's National Leader, where he worked at the time of his death. He was the only of Douglass's sons not to enlist in the Union army. Henry O. Waggoner, a close friend of his father's, took Frederick, Jr., and his brother Lewis to Denver in 1866, to help them establish their careers. Ultimately their attempts failed, and the two returned east. During an outbreak of influenza in 1890, his wife, Virginia, died. His own son, Frederick Douglass III, as well as several other of the couple's children died at an early age. Frederick, Jr., succumbed to a prolonged and painful illness in July 1892. New York Times, 24 September 1876; Washington (D.C.) Bee, 30 July 1892; Detroit Plaindealer, 12 August 1892; McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 97, 145, 248-49, 258, 272, 342, 365. ,³Born in Lynn, Massachusetts, Frederick Douglass, Jr. (1842-92) was the second son of Frederick and Anna Murray Douglass. Like his brothers, he was educated in Rochester’s public schools and learned the printer’s trade while assisting his father in the newspaper office. Unlike his brothers Lewis and Charles, however, Frederick Jr. did not enlist in the Union army. Instead, he acted as a recruiting agent for the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Massachusetts Infantry regiments. After the Civil War, Frederick Jr. tried but failed to gain membership in the typographical worker’s union in Washington, D.C. In 1866 he joined his brother Lewis in Denver, Colorado, and began working in the offices of the Red, White, and Blue Mining Company. While in Denver, Frederick Jr. received additional training as a typographer from his father’s old friend Henry O. Wagoner. He returned to Washington, D.C., in 1868, but racial prejudice again made it difficult for him to gain membership in the union. In 1870, Frederick Jr. joined his father at the , serving as the newspaper’s business manager. He was a frequent contributor of editorials to papers such as the Detroit , the New York , and the Baltimore . His efforts to gain public office, however, ended in failure with his unsuccessful 1873 campaign to be elected as a delegate to the Legislative Assembly of the District of Columbia. After the folded in 1874, Frederick Jr. worked as a court bailiff and later as a clerk in the Office of Records. , ser. 2, 3:274, 865, 910; , ser. 3, 1:126; McFeely, , 248-49, 272; , 1: 422-23. and take a mouthful with me?

In haste yours, truly,

FRED. DOUGLASS.

ALS: Dreer Collection, PHi