John Brown

"The Secret Six. The true tale of the men who conspired with John Brown," by Edward J. Renehan Jr. Illustrated. 308 pages. New York: Crown Publishers. $25About a week after the 1859 collapse of John Brown's Abolitionist raid on Harpers Ferry, a reporter for the New York Herald paid a call at an elegant, columned mansion on the outskirts of Syracuse, N.Y.It was the home of the wealthy hypochondriac and philanthropist Gerrit Smith. Investigators had found letters from Smith among Brown's belongings after the brief but sensational firefight in Virginia.

In Tony Horwitz's book about John Brown's 1859 raid on Harper's Ferry, "Midnight Rising", he writes that Brown was captured on Oct. 16, his trial commenced on Oct. 25, and he was found guilty on Oct. 31. Brown was sentenced on Nov. 2 and hung on Dec. 2, 1859. Justice was delivered in an exact, brief manner. There is absolutely no reason why the trial of the surviving suspect in the Boston bombing, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, can't be expedited in a similarly timely fashion. The outcome of course depends on the trial and jury.

John Brown, a retired railroader and founder of the old Miracle Tabernacle of God Apostolic Church, died of heart failure Aug. 1 at Maryland General Hospital. He was 78. Mr. Brown was born and raised in Baltimore and attended city public schools. He was employed for more than 30 years as a trackman for the Patapsco and Back River Railroad, a Bethlehem Steel Corp. subsidiary, from which he retired in 1984. In the 1950s, Mr. Brown joined First Apostolic Church and later was commissioned an elder in the Holy Tabernacle of God Apostolic Church.

Herbert Stokes Walesby, former art director of the News American who volunteered aboard the SS John W. Brown, where he sketched his shipmates, died of lung cancer Nov. 14 at Christiana Care in Wilmington, Del. The former Sykesville resident was 85. "He was enthusiastic, positive and very talented," said James Toedtman, who had edited the News American in the 1980s. "He was always a bright light in our newsroom. " "Well, the thing about Stokes that was so good was that you never saw him do anything but smile.

Later, he became a mad visionary bent on murder and slave insurrection. Later still, he became a martyr idealized in song and bronze. But in 1847, John Brown was a failing wool merchant in Springfield, Mass.A daguerreotype from those days, recently purchased and now on display at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, shows a thin, clean-shaven, intense man with a piercing stare. It is the oldest known image of Brown, whose 1859 raid at Harper's Ferry demonstrated the passions of pre-Civil War America.

COLLEGE PARK -- John Brown had just sat down in his courtside seat at Cole Field House when the parade began.Ex-Oriole Bill Ripken was one of the first to say hello. Former Maryland basketball player Cedric Lewis stopped by, then former U.S. Senator Joe Tydings. Sportswriter John Feinstein followed.Even the referee, taking his place for the tip-off of the Maryland game, waved to Brown.It seemed that everyone in the place knew Brown, from the players he has befriended to the corporate and political elite gathered in the coveted folding chairs ringing the court.

Quick quiz: Who was John Brown, and what are the poems about him? Score one meager point for remembering "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave." That's the line from a popular Civil War ditty "John Brown's Body" about firebrand abolitionist John Brown. In 1859, Brown led an anti-slavery raid on Harpers Ferry, W.Va. (about an hour west of Howard County). Brown's attempt at revolution and slave-liberation failed, and he was hanged six weeks later in nearby Charles Town, W.Va.

John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights By David S. Reynolds. Alfred A. Knopf. 580 pages. $35. John Brown has achieved eternal life in our culture. His own words from the Charles Town jail helped shape the meaning of his deeds, and his memory has marched ever since to the thrum of the battle hymn he inspired. The old crusader even breathes life into modern fiction, including this year's Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead. Brown's last surviving son, Owen, narrates Russell Banks' Cloudsplitter.

HARPERS FERRY, W.Va. -- John Brown's last shot came from the fire engine house at the foot of Shenandoah Street; his Bible and a broadsword from Bleeding Kansas are on display in a nearby museum. Nearly 145 years have passed since Brown led 21 raiders on a mission to seize 100,000 guns stored here at the federal arsenal. A militant abolitionist, Brown hoped that runaway slaves would join his "liberation army," which would take refuge in nearby mountains and fight a guerrilla war against slaveholders.

YORK, Pa. -- John C. Newcomer is fretting. The slave documents have disappeared, vanished somewhere in this converted garage and basement crammed with 18th century baby cribs, turn-of-the-century graphophones, grandfather clocks, a wooden Indian and the largest collection of cross saws he has ever seen."

Charles F. "Blackie" Blockston Jr., a merchant mariner who during World War II survived the U-boat sinking of the freighter Carlton and spent three weeks drifting 600 miles in a lifeboat before being rescued, died Aug. 28 of multiple-organ failure at the Veterans Medical Center in downtown Baltimore. The longtime Rosedale resident was 93. Mr. Blockston's wartime adventures began in the engine room of the SS Carlton, a Lykes Brothers Steamship Co. freighter that departed Iceland on May 20, 1942, sailing for the Soviet Arctic port of Murmansk.

The last time Donald Halverson was on a Liberty ship, he was heading across the Atlantic Ocean, a fresh-faced draftee who would spend the next 21/2 years fighting his way across Germany, France, Italy and North Africa during World War II. A more recent trip, a leisurely six-hour sail down the Chesapeake Bay on the refurbished Liberty ship John W. Brown, a floating museum that has been plying the waters around Baltimore since 1991, proved a lot...

Joseph Gordon Donald Jones, a retired Baltimore County police officer who served in the U.S. merchant marine and the Navy during World War II, died April 3 of a kidney infection at Franklin Square Medical Center. The longtime Essex resident was 84. The son of a plumber and a housekeeper, Mr. Jones, who was known as Gordon, was born the fourth of five children in Baltimore, and raised in Essex and the city. He dropped out of city public schools after his father's death in 1941 to help support his family.

Thomas R. Gibson, a retired rapid-transit project manager and World War II maritime radio operator who returned to sea as a radioman during the Persian Gulf War, died July 30 of cancer at the Charlestown retirement community. The former Joppa resident was 86. Mr. Gibson, the son of a Northern Pacific railroader and a homemaker, was born and raised in Minneapolis, where he graduated from high school. Mr. Gibson's interest in ham radio began during his high school days and continued when he worked at a radio station in Green Bay, Wis. By 1941, he had earned his radio license from the Federal Communications Commission.

Joseph John Carbo, a retired merchant ship engineer who sailed around the world 14 times and later put his engine room expertise to work as a longtime volunteer aboard the Liberty ship John W. Brown, died Sunday at Gilchrist Hospice Care. The longtime West Towson resident was 82. Mr. Carbo, who was born and raised in South Philadelphia within sight of the Delaware River and the ships steaming in and out of port, was the son of a shipbuilder and a homemaker. During World War I, his father worked at American International Shipbuilding's Hog Island shipyard, and after the war at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

The wild celebration that began immediately after Maryland's 79-72 victory over No. 4 Duke late Wednesday night started with players being carried on the shoulders of other students and ended early Thursday morning in a not-so-joyful setting. The first win over the Blue Devils in more than three years triggered another Maryland tradition: students pouring into and out of the campus bars along U.S. 1 and confronting police and one another. According to Prince George's County police, 27 arrests were made, including several students, among more than 1,500 students who congregated there.

Their passion is diving below the Atlantic to the wrecks of sunken Liberty ships.And their love for one another was consecrated in marriage yesterday on the deck of the John W. Brown, one of only two American Liberty ships remaining out of 2,710 that carried supplies overseas during World War II.In a light afternoon rain alongside Pier One on Clinton Street, longtime companions Karen Ellen Flynn and Douglas Wilson Newlon took their vows from the Rev. Ramon...

"The passage of the Patowmac through the Blue Ridge is perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in Nature. You stand on a very high point of land. On your right comes up the Shenandoah, having ranged along the foot of the mountain a hundred miles to seek a vent. On your left approaches the Patowmac in quest of a passage also. In the moment of their junction they rush together against the mountain.... This scene is worth a voyage across the Atlantic."Thomas Jefferson about Harpers Ferry, 1783The picturesque landscape of Harpers Ferry still looks much as it did in Thomas Jefferson's time.

Louis J. Jerbi, a retired Social Security Administration adviser who parlayed his love of the sea and ships into being an active volunteer aboard the Liberty ship John W. Brown, died Saturday of an aneurysm at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. The longtime Phoenix, Baltimore County, resident was 60. Mr. Jerbi was stricken early Saturday morning while onboard the John W. Brown, which is docked at Pier 1, Clinton Street, in Canton, and died en route to the hospital, family members said.