Concord Transcendentalists and the Legacy of John Brown
 F. B. Sanborn (1831-1917) Materials concerning John Brown: manuscript, ca. 1885. | In 1857 Franklin Sanborn introduced Brown to a group of wealthy and influential Boston reformers, who, along with the New Yorker Gerrit Smith, would become Brown's "Secret Six" and financially back his raid on Harpers Ferry. That year, he introduced Brown to Emerson and Thoreau, and all three would have a tremendous hand in shaping John Brown's legacy as a martyr. This annotated page from Sanborn's The Life and Letters of John Brown (1885) recounts Brown's first meeting with Emerson and Thoreau. bMS Am 1342.2 (3) - John Hays Gardiner Memorial fund, 1942. |