“I said, ‘Well, gentlemen,’ after saluting them in that form, ‘I suppose you are out hunting minerals, gold, and silver?’ His answer was, ‘No, we are not, we are out looking for land; we want to buy land; we have a little money, but we want to make it go as far as we can.’ He asked me about the price of the land. I told him that it ranged from fifteen dollars to thirty dollars in the neighborhood. He remarked, ‘That is high; I thought I could buy land here for about a dollar or two dollars per acre.’ I remarked to him, ‘No, sir; if you expect to get land for that price, you will have to go further west, to Kansas, or some of those Territories where there is government land.’ ... I then asked him where they came from. His answer was, ‘From the northern part of the state of New York.’ I asked him what he followed there. He said farming and the frost had been so heavy lately, that it cut off their crops there; that he could not make anything, and sold out, and thought he would come further south and try it awhile.”[[217]]

Through this easy-going, inquisitive farmer, Brown learned of a farm for rent, which he hired for nine months for thirty-five dollars. It was on the main road between Harper’s Ferry, Chambersburg, and the North, about five miles from the Ferry and in a quiet secluded place. The house stood about 300 yards back from the Boonesborough pike, in plain sight. About 600 yards away on the other side of the road was another cabin of one room and a garret, which was largely hidden from view by the shrubbery. Here Brown settled and gradually collected his men and material. The arms were especially slow in coming. Most of the guns arrived at Chambersburg from Connecticut about August, but the pikes did not come until a month later. Then to the men were gathered slowly. They were at the four ends of the country, in all sorts of employment and different financial conditions, and they were not certain just when the raid would take place. All this delayed Brown from July until October and greatly increased the cost of maintenance. A daughter, Anne, and Oliver’s girl wife came and kept the house from July 16th to October 1st.

At this critical juncture, Harriet Tubman fell sick—a grave loss to the cause—and there were other delays. By August 1st, there were at Harper’s Ferry the two Brown daughters and three sons, and the two brothers of a son-in-law, besides the two Coppocs, Tidd, Jerry Anderson, and Stevens. Hazlett, Leeman, and Taylor came soon after. Kagi was still at Chambersburg and John Brown himself “labored and traveled night and day, sometimes on old Dolly, his brown mule, and sometimes in the wagon. He would start directly after night, and travel the fifty miles between the farm and Chambersburg by daylight the next morning; and he otherwise kept open communication between headquarters and the latter place, in order that matters might be arranged in due season.”[[218]]

In the North John Brown, Jr., was shipping the arms and gathering men and money. He was in Boston August 10th, at Douglass’s home, soon after, and later in Canada with Loguen. All the chief branches of the League were visited and then northern Ohio. The result was meagre; not because of a lack of men but lack of the kind of men wanted at this time. There were thousands of Negroes ready to fight for liberty in the ranks. But most of these John Brown could not use at present. No considerable band of armed black men could have been introduced into the South without immediate discovery and civil war. It was therefore picked leaders like Douglass, Reynolds, Holden and Delaney that Brown wanted at first—discreet and careful men of influence, who, as he said to Douglass, could hive the swarming bees both North and South. To get these picked men interested was, however, difficult. Each had his work and his theory of racial salvation; they were widely scattered. A number of them had been convinced in 1858, but the postponement had given time for reflection and doubt. In many ways, the original enthusiasm had waned, but it was not dead. The cause was just as great and all that was needed was to convince men that this was a real chance to strike an effective blow. They required the magic of Brown’s own presence to impress this fact upon them. They were not sure of his agents. Men continued to come, however, others began to prepare and still, others were almost persuaded. An urgent summons went to Kansas to white fellow workers, and the response there was similarly small. Brown knew that his ability to command the services of a large number of Northern Negroes depended to some degree on Frederick Douglass’s attitude. He was the first great national Negro leader—a man of ability, finesse, and courage. If he followed John Brown, who could hesitate? If he refused, was it not for the best of reasons? Thus John Brown continually urged Douglass and as a last appeal arranged for a final conference on August 19th at Chambersburg in an abandoned stone quarry. Douglass says:

“As I came near, he regarded me rather suspiciously, but soon recognized me, and received me cordially. He had in his hand when I met him a fishing-tackle, with which he had been fishing in a stream hard by, but I saw no fish and did not suppose he cared much for his ‘fisherman’s luck.’ The fishing was simply a disguise and was certainly a good one. He looked every way like a man of the neighborhood, and as much at home as any of the farmers around there. His hat was old and storm-beaten, and his clothing was about the color of the stone quarry itself—his then present dwelling-place.

“His face wore an anxious expression, and he was much worn by thought and exposure. I felt that I was on a dangerous mission, and was as little desirous of discovery as himself, though no reward had been offered for me. We—Mr. Kagi, Captain Brown, Shields Green, and myself—sat down among the rocks and talked over the enterprise which was about to be undertaken. The taking of Harper’s Ferry, of which Captain Brown had merely hinted before, was now declared as his settled purpose, and he wanted to know what I thought of it. I at once opposed the measure with all the arguments at my command. To me, such a measure would be fatal to running off slaves (as was the original plan), and fatal to all engaged in doing so. It would be an attack upon The federal government and would array the whole country against us. Captain Brown did most of the talking on the other side of the question. He did not at all object to rousing the nation; it seemed to him that something startling was just what the nation needed.... Our talk was long and earnest; we spent the most of Saturday and a part of Sunday in this debate—Brown for Harper’s Ferry, and I against it; he for striking a blow which should instantly rouse the country, and I for the policy of gradually and unaccountably drawing off the slaves to the mountains, as at first suggested and proposed by him. When I found that he had fully made up his mind and could not be dissuaded, I turned to Shields Green and told him he heard what Captain Brown had said; his old plan was changed, and that I should return home, and if he wished to go with me he could do so. Captain Brown urged us both to go with him, but I could not do so, and could but feel that he was about to rivet the fetters more firmly than ever on the limbs of the enslaved. In parting, he put his arms around me in a manner more than friendly and said: ‘Come with me, Douglass; I will defend you with my life. I want you for a special purpose. When I strike, the bees will begin to swarm, and I shall want you to help hive them.’ But my discretion or my cowardice made me proof against the dear old man’s eloquence—perhaps it was something of both that determined my course. When about to leave, I asked Green what he had decided to do, and was surprised by his coolly saying, in his broken way, ‘I b’lieve I’ll go wid de ole man.’ Here we separated; they to go to Harper’s Ferry, I to Rochester.”[[219]]

Douglass’s decision undoubtedly kept many Negroes from joining Brown. Shields Green, however, started south. The slave-catchers followed him and made him and Owen Brown swim a river. Only their journeying southward instead of northward saved them from capture.

Life at the farm during this time was curious. Anderson says:

“There was no milk and water sentimentality—no offensive contempt for the Negro, while working in his cause; the pulsations of every heart beat in harmony for the suffering and pleading slave. I thank God that I have been permitted to realize to its furthest, fullest extent, the moral, mental, physical, social harmony of an anti-slavery family, carrying out to the letter the principles of its antitype, the anti-slavery cause. In John Brown’s house, and in John Brown’s presence, men from widely different parts of the continent met and united into one company, wherein no hateful prejudice dared intrude its ugly self—no ghost of distinction found space to enter....

“To a passer-by, the house and its surroundings presented but indifferent attractions. Any log tenement of equal dimensions would be as likely to arrest a stray glance. Rough, unsightly, and aged, it was only for those privileged to enter and tarry for a long time, and to penetrate the mysteries of the two rooms it contained—kitchen, parlor, dining-room below, and the spacious chamber, attic, storeroom, prison, drilling-room, comprised in the loft above—who could tell how we lived at Kennedy Farm.