Page:McClure's Magazine v10 no3 to v11 no2.djvu/92



N 1842, when I first settled at Akron, Ohio, I became acquainted with John Brown, afterwards called "Osawatomie" Brown. He lived one mile west of Akron, on the large farm of Simon Perkins, Jr. They farmed it in partnership. Subsequently Brown went to Europe for the purpose of purchasing finely bred cattle and sheep. He purchased in England specimens of Durham and Devonshire cattle. In Spain he purchased of some Catholic monks some fine grades of merino sheep. All these cattle and sheep were shipped to the United States, and placed on the Perkins farm. As the years went by, the cattle and sheep increased in numbers. It was the pride of Brown to walk off with the premiums on cattle and sheep at the annual fairs of Summit County, Ohio. His smooth, red Devonshire oxen, with their beautiful horns tipped with brass knobs, were the admiration of all. The firm of Perkins and Brown was annually awarded the premium for the best and finest wool by the American Institute, New York, for a number of years. In 1852 Brown missed one of his fat merinos. He set a watch, and in a few days he found another missing, and he traced it to the premises of a neighbor named Ruggles. He sent word to Ruggles that his merino sheep cost him $300 a head, and that if Ruggles could not purchase mutton for his family, he (Brown) had some Bakewell sheep which were much better for mutton than the merinos, and much cheaper, and if Ruggles would come to his farm he would make him a present of a Bakewell sheep occasionally.

Brown, it was well known at this time, was in principle, as well as practice, a non-resistant. He believed in the doctrine which Christ preached on the Mount, that if one is hit on the right cheek, he should turn the other also. The man Ruggles knew this as well as others, and it probably prompted him in the course he pursued. He cut a stout hickory sapling, and one day, when he spied Brown drive out to the forest for a load of wood, stationed himself at the point where Brown would emerge into the public highway, and waited till Brown appeared. Then he applied the hickory sapling across Brown's shoulders. Every blow drew blood. Brown simply folded his arms and waited for the threshing to end. The blood ran down into his boots; between twenty and thirty lashes were given. When the punishment was over, Brown quietly drove with his load of wood to his house, unyoked his oxen and turned them into the pasture, and then came to my office (I was a justice of the peace) to obtain a warrant for Ruggles's arrest. On hearing his statement, I issued the warrant and despatched Constable Jack Wright to serve it. Wright soon returned with Ruggles under arrest.

On the trial, the fact came out in Brown's testimony that he made no resistance. The law would have permitted a fine of $100, but in my decision I said to Brown that, as he had needlessly received all after the first blow, I would fine the defendant the same as if only one blow drawing blood had been struck; so I assessed a fine of twenty dollars.

Brown replied that he was perfectly satisfied; that all he wanted was to have the law enforced. I told him he was living under the laws of Ohio, and, as a magistrate, I was sworn to administer the Ohio laws and not the laws laid down in the Bible. But he replied that he should obey the laws as laid down by Christ, and went his way.

Soon after this he went to live at East Elba, in the northeast portion of New York State. In 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska Bill passed Congress. During the fall of 1854 five sons of Brown, with their families, and one daughter, with her husband and family, emigrated to Kansas and settled at Osawatomie. Two of the sons drove some of the fine cattle and sheep bred by their father across Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri to Kansas. In the spring of 1855 an election was ordered by the Governor of Kansas and held for the election of members of the legislature and county officers. The Border Ruffians came into Kansas from Missouri, took possession of the ballot boxes at Osawatomie, and voted themselves into office, although they were not even citizens of Kansas. Then they very kindly relieved the Browns