The characteristic gratitude of the dark race was illustrated when
A Negro Family Sang at John Brown’s Funeral
“John Brown’s Body Rests Amid the Mountains,” wrote Mary Lee in The New York Times, October, 1929, as she vividly told the story of the life of this dramatic figure in a fascinating manner. At that time, she affirmed, there was still living at North Elba one man who could remember John Brown. His name was Lyman Epps, “the son of one of those Negroes whom John Brown came to North Elba to help.” This writer adds: “The Epps family it was who sang as a quartet at John Brown’s funeral in 1859. Lyman Epps remembers it to this day—how he stood at the foot of the open casket singing bass, his father at the head, singing tenor, and his two sisters, Amelia and Evelyn, singing soprano and alto, at his side.” The hymn they sang was John Brown’s favorite:
“Blow ye the trumpet, blow!
The gladly solemn sound
Let all the nations know,
To earth’s remotest bound,
The year of jubilee is come!
Return, ye ransomed sinners, home.”