Description:

John Brown
Springfield, MA, January 14, 1847
John Brown Early ALS Dated The Same Year As Springfield Meeting With Frederick Douglass
ALS

A 1p autograph letter signed in the third person by anti-slavery leader John Brown (1800-1859) as "Perkins + Brown" at lower right. January 14, 1847. Springfield, Massachusetts. Inscribed on laid pale blue lined paper with an integral address leaf also engrossed by Brown. Hand-stamped with ledger page numbers recto and verso, and pencil-inscribed along the bottom margin by a former collector. A remnant of the original red wax seal is found recto and verso along the bottom edge. Philatelic markings verso including a hand-stamped "PAID." Expected wear including flattened transmittal folds and a few extra gentle wrinkles, else near fine. An overall size of 7.75" x 6.25."

John Brown, wool exporter? Though Brown is best known for leading the foiled 1859 raid at Harpers Ferry, he also tried his hand at a number of other jobs, such as surveyor, tanner, farmer, banker, minister, horse-breeder, and wool exporter. Brown and his sons established a profitable partnership in the mid-1840s with Colonel Simon Perkins of Akron, Ohio. In 1846, Brown relocated his family to Springfield, Massachusetts to act as agent for several Ohio wool merchants including Perkins. This relocation would profoundly shape Brown's political views in the years leading up to Harpers Ferry, and place him in one of the abolitionist epicenters of New England, where he would meet Frederick Douglass and others.

Brown wrote in full, with unchanged usage:

"Springfield Mass 14 Jan/47

Mesr. Ayers + Bro.

Dr Sr

Your Letter of the 5th Inst. Received + noted.

The prospects of a sale are good, now that the panic is over. Together we will continue where we left our business in '46

Respectfully Yours

Perkins + Brown

Lowell Mass."

Brown's business correspondence was addressed to the firm of Ayers & Bros., a large, New England-wide textile concern with mills in Lowell, Massachusetts and elsewhere. Ayers & Bros. executives were brothers James Cook Ayer (1818-1878), ironically more well-known for his popular patent medicine; and Frederick Ayer (1822-1918), an industrialist and investor in real estate and infrastructure. Brown's letter to the Ayers Brothers strikes a note of economic optimism. Americans were still feeling the long-term after-effects of the Panic of 1837 almost a decade later, and the economy had been disrupted by a severe temporary downturn in 1845-1846. Brown did not yet know it, but there was another downturn in the offing which would last from 1847-1848.

Brown's move to Springfield, Massachusetts proved auspicious economically, as well as culturally and intellectually. His activism deepened and intensified in such a welcoming environment of like-minded abolitionists. While in Springfield, Brown was a member of the Sanford Street Free Church (today St. John's Congregational Church), one of the first-ever African American churches, established in 1844. He attended lectures given by the formerly enslaved Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass. Brown was closely involved with the Black community In Springfield. In addition to worshiping at the Black church, he also befriended Thomas Thomas, a Black local, and made a point to hire Black workers in his wool concern.

In December 1847, about 11 months after Brown wrote this letter, Brown met with Frederick Douglass at the former's home in Springfield. The event had a lasting impact on both men. Douglass later reflected about that December 1847 meeting: "From this night spent with John Brown in Springfield, Mass. 1847 while I continued to write and speak against slavery, I became all the same less hopeful for its peaceful abolition. My utterances became more and more tinged by the color of this man's strong impressions..." Douglass later stated in his 1881 autobiography: "From the time of my visit to him [Brown] in Springfield, Mass., in 1847, our relations were friendly and confidential. I never passed through Springfield without calling on him, and he never came to Rochester without calling on me. He often stopped over night with me, when we talked over the feasibility of his plan for destroying the value of slave property, and the motive for holding slaves in the border States…" (Frederick Douglass, "Life and Times of Frederick Douglass" (Hartford, Connecticut: Park Publishing Co., 1881), pp. 318.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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  • Dimensions: 7.75" x 6.25"
  • Medium: ALS

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