• Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar

New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Adirondacks & NNY
  • Capital-Saratoga
  • Mohawk Valley
  • Hudson Valley & Catskills
  • NYC & Long Island
  • Western NY
  • History
  • Nature & Environment
  • Arts & Culture
  • Outdoor Recreation
  • Food & Farms
  • Subscribe
  • Support
  • Submit
  • About
  • New Books
  • Events
  • Podcasts

The Last Days of John Brown: The Famous Beard

November 3, 2021 by John Warren Leave a Comment

Ole Peter Hansen Balling 1873 portrait of John Brown National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian InstitutionFor reasons of political expediency, Republicans in the North initially distanced themselves from John Brown and his raid to free people enslaved around Harper’s Ferry.

Many joined the chorus of (often pro-slavery) voices proclaiming Brown insane, no doubt in part to protect their own political party, for as John Brown’s biographer David S. Reynolds put it, “the implication was that Republicans, and by extension many Northerners, were lawbreakers who threatened national peace.”

The truth of course, was that Brown had probably already planned a raid into Virginia to free slaves there before the Republican Party was founded in 1854.

Nonetheless, even Northern Democrats attacked Republicans for the supposed connections with the raiders, and their insane leader. “To be sure he was crazy, and has long been so,” a writer for the New York Journal of Commerce noted, “but he is no more crazy than those by whom he has so long been encouraged in his bloody career.”

On November 18th, 1859 the New York Vigilant Committee met in Manhattan and worked to solidify the link between Republicans and John Brown, even publishing a pamphlet: Rise and Progress of the Bloody Outbreak at Harper’s Ferry.

Southerners took the argument several steps farther arguing that anti-slavery men like Ohio Congressman Joshua Giddings, Henry Ward Beecher (abolitionist Boston preacher and brother of Uncle Tom’s Cabin author Harriet Beecher Stowe), Wendell Phillips, New York newspaperman Horace Greeley, and then New York Senator (and former New York Governor) William Seward, were traitors and criminals.

Fredrick Douglass was singled out – a bounty of $2,500 was put on his head (and that of Seward’s) by southern slavers. A Richmond newspaper offered $50,000 for “the traitor” Senator Seward. Fellow Senator and later President of the (actually traitorous) Southern Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, called for Seward to be hanged as a traitor. In truth, men like Seward, Douglas, and Abraham Lincoln spoke against John Brown.

Perhaps the single most long-lasting attack on John Brown’s cause was that Brown was crazy – and by extension, so were his followers. The most damaging component of the “madness of John Brown” argument has been the man’s beard.

Abolitionist John Brown engraving from daguerreotype ca 1857It wasn’t until the last year of his life that Brown grew his famous beard – he probably stopped shaving in the late fall of 1857. By the spring of the following year, he had a full beard. Contemporary drawings of Brown made when he was arrested at Harper’s Ferry show that his beard had been either been trimmed close or shaved off altogether.

John Brown did not generally wear a beard! Just one photo (of more than a dozen known to exist) taken during his travels in New England in the spring of 1858 shows Brown with a beard. A shaving kit owned by Brown is held by The Ohio Historical Center.

Brown grew his beard to disguise himself during his final preparations for the raid on Virginia (he also used the alias Isaac Smith). He cut off his beard shortly before leaving the Kennedy farm for Harper’s Ferry. John Brown was proud of his campaign to free southern slaves – once the raid was begun he needed neither his alias nor his beard as a disguise.

Yet, images of John Brown continue to focus on his beard, often portrayed as wild and unkempt. And of course the assaults on his mental health continue as well.

“The Last Days of John Brown” is a multi-part series about the life and final days of John Brown and his compatriots, who helped spark the Civil War. You can read the entire series here. 

Illustrations, from above; and an engraving from daguerreotype ca 1857 showing his usually shaved appearance.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Filed Under: History Tagged With: Abolition, John Brown, Political History, The Last Days of John Brown

About John Warren

John Warren is founder and editor of the New York Almanack. He's been a media professional for more than 35 years with a focus on history, journalism and documentary production. He has a master's degree in Public History and is on the staff of the New York State Writers Institute, a center for literary arts based at the University at Albany. John lives in the Adirondack Park. His weekly Adirondack Outdoors Conditions Report airs across Northern New York on the North Country Public Radio network.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Help Support Our Work

Subscribe to New York Almanack

Subscribe! Follow the New York Almanack each day via E-mail, RSS, Twitter or Facebook updates.

Recent Comments

  • Pat Boomhower on Comments On Increasing Adirondack Park Road, Snowmobile Trail Mileage Sought
  • Alice Smith Duncan on A Saratoga County Odd Fellows Hall Is Now A Place For History
  • Jerome Lafayette Narramore on 1920s KKK Recruiting Efforts in Northern New York
  • Edythe Ann Quinn on 1920s KKK Recruiting Efforts in Northern New York
  • Bob Meyer on 1920s KKK Recruiting Efforts in Northern New York
  • Jerome Lafayette Narramore on 1920s KKK Recruiting Efforts in Northern New York
  • Edythe Ann Quinn on 1920s KKK Recruiting Efforts in Northern New York
  • Bob Meyer on 1920s KKK Recruiting Efforts in Northern New York
  • James S. Kaplan on Grant to Jacob Leisler Institute to Fund Lectures, Internships
  • Jerome Lafayette Narramore on 1920s KKK Recruiting Efforts in Northern New York

Recent New York Books

crossroads of rockland history
ben franklins world podcast
Spaces of Enslavement and Resistance in Dutch New York
ilion cover
Spare Parts
new yorks war of 1812
a prison in the woods cover
Visitors to My Street
Greek Fire
Building THe Ashokan Reservoir

Secondary Sidebar

preservation league
Protect the Adirondacks Hiking Guide