This industry in the United States had at that time passed through many vicissitudes. The change from household to factory economy and the introduction of effective machinery had been slow, and one of the chief drawbacks was ever the small quantity of good wool. Consequently our chief supply came from England until the embargo and war cut off that supply and stimulated domestic manufacture. Between 1810 and 1815 the value of the manufacture increased five-fold, but after the war, when England sent goods over here below the price, Americans rightly clamored for tariff protection. This they got, but their advantage was nearly upset by the wool farmers who also got protection on the commodity, although less on low than on better qualities; and it was the low grades that America produced. From 1816 to 1832 the tariff wall against wool and woolens rose steadily until it reached almost prohibitive figures, save on the cheapest kind. In this way the wool manufacture had by 1828 recovered its war-time prosperity; by 1840 the mills were sending out twenty and a half million dollars’ worth of goods yearly, and nearly fifty millions by 1860 even though meanwhile the tariff wall was weakening. Thus by 1841 when John Brown turned his attention to sheep-farming, there was a large and growing demand for wool, especially of the better grades, and by the abolition of the English tariff in 1824, there was even a chance of invading England.
Because, then, of his natural liking for the work, and the growing prosperity of the wool trade, John Brown chose this line of employment. But not for this alone. His spirit was longing for air and space. He wanted to think and read; time was flying and his life as yet had been little but a mean struggle for bread and that, too, only partially successful. Already he had had a vision of vast service. Already he had broached the matter to friends and family, and at the age of thirty-nine he entered his new life distinctly and clearly with “the idea that as a business it bid fair to afford him the means of carrying out his greatest or principal object.”[[26]]
His first idea was to save enough from the wreck of his fortune to buy and stock a large sheep farm, and in accordance with his already forming plans as to Negro emancipation, he wanted this farm in or near the South. A chance seemed opening when through his father, a trustee of Oberlin College, he learned of the Virginia lands lately given that institution by Gerrit Smith, whom Brown came to know better. Oberlin College was dear to John Brown’s heart, for it had almost from the beginning taken a strong anti-slavery stand. The titles to the Virginia land, however, were clouded by the fact of many squatters being in possession, which gave ample prospects of costly lawsuits. Brown wrote the trustees early in 1840, proposing to survey the lands for a nominal price, provided he could be allowed to buy on reasonable terms and establish his family there. He also spoke of school facilities which he proposed for Negroes as well as whites, according to a long cherished plan. The college records in April, 1840, say: “Communication from Brother John Brown of Hudson was presented and read by the secretary, containing a proposition to visit, survey and make the necessary investigation respecting boundaries, etc., of those lands, for one dollar per day and a moderate allowance for necessary expenses; said paper frankly expressing also his design of viewing the lands as a preliminary step to locating his family upon them, should the opening prove a favorable one; whereupon, voted that said proposition be acceded to, and that a commission and needful outfit be furnished by the secretary and treasurer.”[[27]] The treasurer sent John Brown fifty dollars and wrote his father, as a trustee of Oberlin, commending the son’s purpose and hoping “for a favorable issue both for him and the institution.” He added, “Should he succeed in clearing up titles without difficulty or lawsuits, it would be easy, as it appears to me, to make provision for religious and school privileges and by proper efforts with the blessing of God, soon see that wilderness bud and blossom as the rose.”[[28]]
Thus John Brown first saw Virginia and looked upon the rich and heavy land which rolls westward to the misty Blue Ridge. That he visited Harper’s Ferry on this trip is doubtful but possible. The lands of Oberlin, however, lay two hundred miles westward in the foothills and along the valley of the Ohio. He wrote home from Ripley, Va., in April (for he had gone immediately): “I like the country as well as I expected, and its inhabitants rather better; and I have seen the spot where if it be the will of Providence, I hope one day to live with my family.... Were the inhabitants as resolute and industrious as the Northern people and did they understand how to manage as well, they would become rich.”[[29]]
By the summer of 1840 his work was accomplished with apparent success. He had about selected his dwelling-place, having “found on the right branch of Big Battle a valuable spring, good stone-coal, and excellent bottoms, good timber, sugar orchard, good hill land and beautiful situation for dwelling—all right. Course of this branch at the forks is south twenty-one degrees west from a beautiful white oak on which I marked my initials, 23d April.”[[30]]
The Oberlin trustees in August, “voted, that the Prudential Committee be authorized to perfect negotiations and convey by deed to Brother John Brown of Hudson, one thousand acres of our Virginia land on the conditions suggested in the correspondence which has already transpired between him and the committee.”[[31]]
Here, however, negotiations stopped, for the renewal of the panic in 1839 overthrew all business calculations until 1842 and later, and forced John Brown to take refuge in formal bankruptcy in 1842. This step, his son says, was wholly “owing to his purchase of land on credit—including the Haymaker farm at Franklin, which he bought in connection with Seth Thompson, of Hartford, Trumbull County, Ohio, and his individual purchase of three rather large adjoining farms in Hudson. When he bought those farms, the rise in value of his place in Franklin was such that good judges estimated his property worth fully twenty thousand dollars. He was then thought to be a man of excellent business judgment and was chosen one of the directors of a bank at Cayahoga Falls.”[[32]] Probably after the crash of 1837, Brown hoped to extricate enough to buy land in Virginia and move there, but things went from bad to worse. Through endorsing a note for a friend, one of his best pieces of farm property was attached, put up at auction and bought by a neighbor. Brown, on legal advice, sought to retain possession, but was arrested and placed in the Akron jail. The property was lost. Legal bankruptcy followed in October, 1842, but Brown would not take the full advantage of it. He gave the New England Woolen Company of Rockville, Conn., a note declaring that “whereas I, John Brown, on or about the 15th day of June, A. D. 1839, received of the New England Company (through their agent, George Kellogg, Esq.) the sum of twenty-eight hundred dollars for the purchase of wool for said company, and imprudently pledged the same for my own benefit and could not redeem it; and whereas I have been legally discharged from my obligations by the laws of the United States—I hereby agree (in consideration of the great kindness and tenderness of said company toward me in my calamity, and more particularly of the moral obligation I am under to render to all their due) to pay the same and the interest thereon from time to time as divine Providence shall enable me to do.”[[33]]
He wrote Mr. Kellogg at the same time: “I am sorry to say that in consequence of the unforeseen expense of getting the discharge, the loss of an ox, and the destitute condition in which a new surrender of my effects has placed me, with my numerous family, I fear this year must pass without my effecting in the way of payment what I have encouraged you to expect.”[[34]] He was still paying this debt when he died and left fifty dollars toward it in his will.
It was a labyrinth of disaster in which the soul of John Brown was well-nigh choked and lost. We hear him now and then gasping for breath: “I have been careful and troubled with so much serving that I have in a great measure neglected the one thing needful, and pretty much stopped all correspondence with heaven.”[[35]] He goes on to tell his son: “My worldly business has borne heavily and still does; but we progress some, have our sheep sheared, and have done something at our haying. Have our tanning business going on in about the same proportion—that is, we are pretty fairly behind in business and feel that I must nearly or quite give up one or the other of the branches for want of regular troops on whom to depend.”[[36]] He again tells his son: “I would send you some money, but I have not yet received a dollar from any source since you left. I should not be so dry of funds, could I but overtake my work;”[[37]] and then follows the teeth-gritting word of a man whose grip is slipping: “But all is well; all is well.”[[38]]
Gradually matters began to mend. His tannery, perhaps never wholly abandoned, was started again and his wool interests increased. Early in 1844 “we seem to be overtaking our business in the tannery,” he says, and “I have lately entered into a co-partnership with Simon Perkins, Jr., of Akron, with a view of carrying on the sheep business extensively. He is to furnish all the feed and shelter for wintering, as a set-off against our taking all the care of the flock. All other expenses we are to share equally, and to divide the property equally.” John Brown and his family were to move to Akron and he says: “I think that is the most comfortable and the most favorable arrangement of my worldly concerns that I ever had and calculated to afford us more leisure for improvement by day and by night than any other. I do hope that God has enabled us to make it in mercy to us, and not that He should send leanness into our souls. Our time will all be at our own command, except the care of the flock. We have nothing to do with providing for them in the winter, excepting harvesting rutabagas and potatoes. This I think will be considered no mean alliance for our family and I most earnestly hope they will have wisdom given to make the most of it. It is certainly endorsing the poor bankrupt and his family, three of whom were but recently in Akron jail in a manner quite unexpected, and proves that notwithstanding we have been a company of ‘belted knights,’ our industrious and steady endeavors to maintain our integrity and our character have not been wholly overlooked.”[[39]]