THE JOHN BROWN SONG.
The claim has been made that the melody of the John Brown song was the product of the colored people. Our readers will see from the following article, which we take great pleasure in publishing, that Mr. Frank E. Jerome, of Russell, Kansas, is the author of this famous war song. He has written the article, at our request, for the Missionary, and in a private letter he says that at the time he composed the song he was only thirteen years of age.
Ed.
On the first day of February, 1861, I arrived in Leavenworth, Kansas, from St. Louis, Mo., and took an engagement in a theatre there. Leavenworth at that time was under the greatest excitement. All sorts of rumors of war were coming in, and the soldiers seemed to be concentrating from all sides. Bonfires and stump speeches were the nightly occurrences, and stirred up the patriotism of the people to fever heat. As a boy, I naturally fell into the excitement, and every chance I had I would attend these public meetings. At one of them I heard an impassioned orator thunder out:
“For Freedom and Right will surely win the day!”
This sentence remained with me. I pondered over it, and finally got to singing it in different ways in several songs. Some time after, I heard a prominent citizen say that “John Brown was dead, but the rebels would find that his soul would roll on and crush them!” Before either of these occurrences, I heard a number of soldiers on a South-bound steamer singing, as they swept by:
“Go tell Aunt Susey! Go tell Aunt Susey!
Go tell Aunt Susey old John Brown is dead!” (Etc.)
This tune I had picked up and learned thoroughly. One gift of nature to me has been the art of combining two tunes of different kinds and thereby producing a new one. I had combined this tune of “Go tell Aunt Susey” with the old Sunday-school hymn, “I love to go to Sunday-school,” and the union of these two tunes produced the air of “John Brown’s Body,” as sung everywhere since that time. I sang this tune long before I put any words to it. But when I heard “Freedom and Right will surely win the day,” and that John Brown’s soul “would roll on and crush them,” I found with delight that I could fit them neatly into my tune.
The play in which I gave “John Brown’s Body” was designated as “Jeff. Davis in the Camp.” It represented a number of Northern Negroes going down to capture Jeff. Davis, and during the march southward they build a camp fire, and while the bean soup is boiling the sentinel sings a song, and the rest of the “soldiers” on the stage join in the chorus. I was the sentinel, and gave the song at this time. A company of soldiers was present in the audience, and I was quite startled at the reception my song received. They hurrahed, yelled, laughed, stamped, and called me out time and again, until the proprietor of the theatre interposed and quieted the excitement. But that night, every time I appeared on the stage another storm of applause would greet me.
After the show was over, the soldiers cheered and went out singing “John Brown’s Body” in all sorts of ways, and for several days after I heard it on the street in many different ways. The tune has always remained as I first composed it, but the soldiers changed the words to suit their own convenience and ideas. The song as I sang it was as follows:
John Brown’s body lies slumbering in the grave;
John Brown was noble, loyal and brave;
His mission on earth was to rescue and to save,
And his soul goes rolling on!
Chorus: Glory, glory, Hallelujah! (Etc.)
The Rebels in the South can never make it pay
While John Brown’s mission speeds on its way,
For Freedom and Right will surely win the day,
As his soul goes rolling on!
This was all the song—but two verses. A short time after this a little newsboy stopped me and told me that he had made up a new verse for my song; and upon asking him to sing it, he sang:
“We’ll hang Jeff. Davis on a sour apple-tree!”
repeating the same line three times. I laughed, and told him I would think it over.
In the theatre when I gave the song was a Frenchman named C. Francois, well known to the early settlers of Leavenworth, who was the leader of a glee club, composed of the actors, who sang nicely many national airs and ballads. Mr. Francois, about the time I sang the song, went to New York, and, I learn, returned by way of Massachusetts, and I am led to believe that it was through his means that the song reached the Eastern States as quickly as it did; and I also have good reason for believing that the Seventh Kansas and Fiftieth Illinois regiments carried the song South a little later.
These are the facts as they occurred; and I may say, in closing, that I am pleased to note that the little acorn has developed into the mighty oak, and John Brown’s name is one of the imperishable monuments that now adorn a free and united country; and the colored people of the South and North can unite under the glorious banner of Liberty in preserving the name and love for him who freely gave his life for their liberty and freedom.
I have heard severe criticism on the part of Southerners regarding the illustrious dead, but I often remember the olden story, in the Holy Book, of similar criticism made by the enemies of Christ, and I also read that “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
So, in our homes, in our workshops, in the fields, in the churches and schools, through the pages of history, and within our own hearts, we will never forget the boys in blue who saved the Union, and the glorious hero who laid down his life willingly and freely, that the curse of slavery should be forever extinguished from the bright, fair pages of our history. And while we strew bright flowers over the graves of the departed heroes, we shall always remember, with swelling heart and deep affection, the great work accomplished by old John Brown of Ossawatomie.
Russell, Kansas.
FRANK E. JEROME.