Abel Brown

Early ministry

His first cause was Temperance. At age 22 he returned to his native Springfield and preached nine sermons, and for the next three years he was a traveling preacher who devoted his ministry to children and proclaiming the evils of alcohol. Often, in his journal, he talked about denying himself, of sacrificing all for his Lord, and of his dream to work in some distant corner of the world as a missionary. The next year he went to Auburn, New York, and attempted to convert the village to his Temperance views. His naivete and boldness drove him to call a public meeting during which he scolded the villagers about their abuse of alcohol. But when a private list he had made of villagers who abused alcohol was taken from him and made public, a mob assembled outside his hotel room prepared to take vengeance. Brown who had earlier been whipped by a grocery store owner was able to elude the mob and flee in a wagon to the nearly woods where he hid for the next 12 hours while the mob searched for him. It was not the last time his life was threatened.

Becoming an abolitionist

His obituary states that Brown was first confronted by the problem of slavery in 1829 while living in Fredonia; however, his first mention of it by him in his journal did not come until 1836 when he wrote that, “I am an abolitionist in the full sense of the word, yet I have found little time to say or do much in the cause.” Nevertheless, his temperance preaching had incited many against him, for he also wrote in the same passage that “I have been publicly mobbed, cowskined, knocked beside of the head, and assaulted five or six different times during the past, but God delivers me, and puts all mine enemies to confusion.” For another year-and-a-half, Brown ministered in the village of Westfield, west of Fredonia. His Temperance message was not well received there. He moved to Beaver, Pennsylvania, along the Ohio River, about 30 miles from Pittsburgh, and in the full sense of the word only barely describes the turn to abolitionism that he took. In a Feb. 5, 1839 letter he wrote to Joshua Leavitt and the Emancipator, Brown also sketched stories of various fugitive slaves he encountered, and charged that upholding slavery was destroying the Baptist Church.

The Underground Railroad

Brown was now marching into the battlefield against slavery, as a December 3, 1838 report to the Western Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society described: “I have been in close action with the enemy. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, was one continued row. A mob drove me from the house on Friday night. Saturday night I could not get to the house unless through showers of stones, and Sunday, the house was found nailed up”. On another occasion he wrote of his liturgical service being interrupted by a man in disguise who ran up to the altar, grabbed him by the collar, and tried to drag him out of church. Of this period living along the Ohio River, his biographer wrote: “... it is said that Mr. Brown aided slaves in their escape from bondage .... as his location afforded peculiar facilities for thus delivering the spoiled from the hands of the spoiler .... Indeed, all those who had been in the prison house of slavery, and were in the act of fleeing from the tyrant monster, ever found a welcome at his door and safety from the grasp of the pursuer.”

Among them was a young girl from Alexandria, District of Columbia. Arrangements had been made for Brown to meet her in Baltimore. However, by the time she got there, advertisements of her escape had been posted, and law officers were looking for her. To make matters worse, the slaveholder suspected Brown and made charges against him. After three days of eluding the authorities, Brown stealthily drove off in a carriage with the girl, and put her under the care of a Mr. J who moved her on to her eventual destination of Canada. Before Brown could make his own getaway, however, he was arrested and put on trial. Luckily, no evidence was produced and he was released.

His struggles made him even more determined, and through the auspices of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, he took a pastorate in Northampton, MA in July, 1839. He sensed his time was short; this reality confronted him when his sister, Cynthia, who was doing missionary work among Native Americans in Missouri, died tragically. In a letter to his brother about his sister’s death, Brown spoke of his feelings about mortality: “Death is common to us all and we should daily be conversant with it, as to be able to meet it with calmness and reconciliation. There is nothing about death that should really make us afraid, since Jesus Christ has been with us in life—he certainly will not forsake us in that trying hour, and if He is with us all will be safe.”

During this time, conflict within the anti-slavery movement in New England had splintered Garrison’s Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. In part, this was because of Garrison’s increasing hostility to the orthodox religious denominations, most of whose leadership had resisted Abolition. In reaction, the Massachusetts Abolition Society, among whose leaders was Charles Torrey, formed with a strong commitment to both religion and political action. Brown supported the new organization and joined the newly-formed Liberty Party. But he found it increasingly difficult to work with fellow Baptists in the region who were not as devoted to the cause of Abolition. As a result, he moved to upstate New York in the spring of 1841, taking a pastorate at the Sand Lake Baptist Church in Rensselaer County, near Albany, and becoming one of leaders in the area's Liberty Party. Here began his most productive efforts for Abolition and the Underground Railroad.

The Tocsin of Liberty

The beginning of 1842 marked a reinvigorated effort by Brown as an agent of the Underground Railroad in Albany, “a city which from its location on the banks of the Hudson, was the constant resort of fugitive slaves.” He had become an agent and publisher of the newly established abolition weekly, the Tocsin of Liberty, whose issues reported many accounts of fugitives from slavery aided by the Underground operators, and of the slavecatchers who had come to retrieve them. He also was made the corresponding secretary and general agent of the Eastern New York Anti-Slavery Society which was established in 1842. Its focus of operations was the Hudson River and it served to support the Tocsin and the Underground efforts from Albany north to Canada, as an adjunct of the growing Liberty Party that had organized in Albany in 1840.

Among Brown's efforts here were those in behalf of a newly-freed slave, who needed an additional $200 to purchase his wife and six children from slavery. Brown wrote in the Tocsin dated May 1, 1842:

There arrived in this city from Washington D. C. during the last week, a man by the name of FREEMEN, a carpenter by trade .... He has formerly been a slave of the Hon. Mr. B., late Sec’y of the U. S. Navy, from whom he purchased himself for the sum of $800. The said Sec’y now holds in bondage his wife and six children; and utterly refuses to give them up unless the husband and father will pay him the sum of $1,800, and has promised to retain them nine months, to give the father an opportunity of purchasing them at the expiration of that time: otherwise they are to be sold, and perhaps separated, never more to meet on earth. Mr. Freemen wishes to obtain in this and adjoining places, the sum of $200, which with what he has now in his possession, will enable him to obtain from that Honored American Robber, that which now justly belongs to him. He is willing to work for a term of years, for any person who will furnish him means to thus bless his family ....

The level of Brown's activity in the Underground Railroad is reflected in the following letter to editor of the Tocsin, dated June 20, 1842 and signed Forwarding Merchants, Albany, N.Y.:

The vigilance committee are up to their elbows in work, and are desirous to have you inform a few of those men who have lately lost property consisting of articles of merchandize (falsely so called) in the shape, and having the minds and sympathies of human beings, that we are always on hand, and ready to ship cargoes on the shortest notice, and ensure a safe passage over the 'Great Ontario'.

Another letter, dated June 9, 1842, from Brown to Vermont conductor, Charles Hicks in Bennington, was used to introduce a fugitive slave that he forwarded: "Please receive the Bearer as a friend who needs your aid and direct him on his way if you cannot give him work he come to us well recommended was a slave a few weeks since." Succeeding issues of the Tocsin included reports from Brown about his continuing work in the Underground Railroad. Also, during this period, a fugitive sent to Henry Highland Garnet by the New York Committee of Vigilance included a letter with the following: “The bearer is travelling northward, in quest of his wife (who obtained her freedom by operation of natural assumption,) and he is also endeavoring to secure to himself the same advantage. I am under the impression, that she did not go to Troy, but was directed to Mr. Abel Brown, of Albany, to whom I have directed some forty or fifty, within a short time.”

The recent claims by some revisionist historians that secrecy regarding the Underground Railroad was unnecessary in upstate New York and surrounding areas is refuted by Brown's experiences. Unlawful searches, seizures, and assaults at the home of free colored persons in Albany were frequent occurrences. As Brown's biographer wrote, "The Vigilance Committee of Albany often found themselves in personal contest with slaveholders and their abettors, on account of the infringement on the rights of colored citizens ...” After one especially grievous assault, the authorities refused to indict the lawbreaker because he was a prominent citizen. Large public meetings followed, condemning both the police and the jury, and another member of the vigilance committee, Tocsin of Liberty editor Edwin Goodwin “was brutally assaulted in the street for the part he took in the matter.”

The tumult of his life was aggravated during this period by the death of his first wife, Mary Ann, only five weeks after the birth of their second child. His biographer writes: “Amid these scenes of domestic affliction . . . Mr. Brown was surrounded by men of violence and blood; who, ere the remains of his deceased wife were removed, threatened the destruction of his house—and he often was obliged to seek refuge at night in some habitation of his friends, unknown to his enemies.”

Antislavery tours

Brown placed his children in his parents’ care in Fredonia and pledged to work with yet greater earnest for the cause of the slave. His tours now featured former fugitive slaves who told about audiences about their experiences in slaves. He also made a tour of fugitive slave communities in Canada West with fugitive slave lecturer Milton Clark. In November, 1842, he visited Dawn Mills, Canada, with fugitive and former slave, Milton Clark, where he met fugitives he had assisted in Albany. Another fugitive and former slave who became a regular on the circuit with Brown was Lewis Washington, who was appointed as an agent of the Eastern New York Anti-Slavery Society.

During this time, Baltimore slaveholders offered a reward to an Albany constable for the apprehension of Brown and his cohorts, Charles Torrey, who had moved to New York and was now one of the Tocsin's publishers, and E. W. Goodwin, Tocsin editor. This is understandable in light of the published report in December, 1842 of the Albany Vigilance Committee, which stated that in the previous year "no less than 350 fugitives had been aided to place of safety by the Committee ...". Eber Pettit, in his book, Sketches in the history of the Underground railroad explained that Brown and Charles Torrey used advertisements to deceive slaveholders of the whereabouts of their escaped slaves in order to assist their escape. The following advertisement that was published by Brown in the antislavery newspapers of the day, including his own Albany Patriot (the later name of the Tocsin of Liberty) is a possible example of this:

$100 Reward – Runaway from the subscriber in Baltimore City, on Thursday, 25th ult., a Mulatto Man [sic], named Robert Hill.

[Signed] WALTER FERNANDIS

In his characteristically audacious style, Brown replied:

Mr. Fernandis:—This is to inform you that the noble Robert Hill reached this city in safety and was safely sent on his way rejoicing. We charge you $25 for money paid him and services rendered, and 56 cents for the letter containing the advertisement. Please send a draft for the same

[Signed] ABEL BROWN

Forwarding Merchant, Albany

P.S. The business is very good this year. Please inform the slaves that we are always on hand and ready to receive them.

[Signed] A.B. (published in the Vermont Freeman, July 1, 1843)

On May 15, 1843, Brown and his second wife Catherine were married by the Underground Railroad conductor, Rev. Charles Ray. In July, the Browns began a western tour. Their first stop was Canandaigua, and they continued with anti-slavery lectures in among other destinations, Penn Yan and Niagara Falls. Mrs. Brown complemented her husband’s speeches with liberty songs, her signature song being “The Slave Mother’s Lament.” In Michigan, the Browns visited Detroit, Ann Arbor, Jackson and Marshall where they “found . . . the liberty-loving spirit ever inspiring and active in the cause.” During the first week of August, 1843, they traveled by steamboat to Chicago and were taken by coach to an abolitionist stronghold in a rural area 30 miles distant. Brown’s journal revealed the following:

After about four hours ride, we stopped at the house of another [former] Vermonter, and found his barn well rigged for a meeting . . . . The meeting was large considering the sparseness of the population. And the abolitionism was none of the half-way sort—there are no fence men here; but the friends feel deeply and think more deeply than many Eastern abolitionists. They are certainly more decided; they have more to contend with. Almost all of them are subject to indictment under State law, but Lovejoy-like they are unmoved.

From Chicago, they continued farther west to Prairieville, Wisconsin Territory, an “already abolitionized” town, the residence of his mother and home of the abolitionist newspaper, American Freeman. From Prairieville, they went to Milwaukee, where a slave hunter was on the prowl and where they concluded their tour after nearly two months of travel and 58 abolition meetings, during which they communed with such abolitionists as Owen Lovejoy, Zebina Eastman, and Guy Beckley. On their return trip, they attended a National Anti-Slavery convention in Buffalo, where they met Charles T. Torrey, his “co-adjutor” in his Underground Railroad and antislavery efforts.

Brown took only a short rest after returning home. While his wife rested with her family in Massachusetts, he set out on a tour of the Adirondack region. A long letter to her dated Oct. 11, an excerpt of which follows, illustrates the frenetic pace Brown followed and sheds light on abolition activities in the northeastern New York region:

After the convention, Brown’s journey took him farther north into Clinton Country. During this trip Brown met with the region's most important abolitionists, including Joseph Leggett in Chestertown, Warren County, and Noadiah Moore, Clinton County, the leaders of their respective county's Liberty parties. During this month-long trip, he spent $75.90 for the Albany Vigilance Committee, mainly to aid "directly" fugitive slaves.

His last days

In 1844, Brown’s lectures took him west to Fulton County, New York, then south to Delaware, Sullivan, Orange, Ulster, and Dutchess counties. In the spring, the Browns were among 1500 guests at the third anniversary meeting of the Eastern New York Anti-Slavery Society at the Apollo Saloon in New York City. It was a celebration of the society's achievements, which included the safeguarding of fugitive slaves in the region and the tripling of the Liberty Party vote in the fifteen counties in eastern New York . That year, the Browns moved to Troy. During this time, Brown and his wife became legal guardians for a black girl who came to live with them. The Browns returned to the Adirondacks that summer. A voyage aboard the Steamboat Burlington on Lake Champlain elicited this response: “Many a slave has enjoyed the indescribable pleasure of leaping from the liberty-loving Burlington, to feel the pleasure of being free under the protection of a Queen whose pleasure it is to make the lowest of her subjects happy.”

In Westport, Essex County, the Baptist Church refused to allow him the use of their pulpit, and he was forced to lecture at the Methodist Church though not without some hesitancy from them as well. Apparently, a strong following existed there for Henry Clay, against who Brown had vigorously campaigned, and Brown and his wife were pelted with eggs when they left the Methodist Church. At Elizabethtown, Moriah, Keeseville and Jay, their reception was better.

Premature death

After returning to Troy, Brown participated in a Liberty Party rally at the city courthouse, which was attacked by a mob. For a short time, police repelled the mob, and the abolitionists were able to flee to the mayor’s house. However, the mayor refused to protect them, and without police protection they were forced to flee once more to the home of Baptist minister Fayette Shipherd. During this jaunt, along Albany Street between Third and Fifth Streets, they were stoned and beaten.

The following week another Liberty Party meeting was held at Rev. Shipherd’s Baptist Church. A mob gathered but remained outside when it learned that Brown was not in attendance. However, midway through the meeting, Brown arrived, returning from a convention in one of the northern counties. At this point the mob forced itself into the church, and when Brown rose to speak, they began to taunt him.

“I know not, but I am as well prepared to die now,” he answered them prophetically, “as I should be forty years hence.”

In the next month, Brown participated in two Liberty Party conventions in Saratoga County, the first in Edinburgh, at which money was raised to employ an anti-slavery agent to circulate through the county, and a second in Corinth. Brown, it was reported by his wife, was now using a cane, perhaps the result of the beating he had endured during the riots in Troy. He was later mobbed again at antislavery meetings in Poughkeepsie and again, in Troy. In late October 1844, he left on a trip to western New York, taking the train to Rochester. His next stop was Canandaigua and he took another train part of the way to a village with the intention of getting lodging for the night. But there were no vacancies, and when he attempted to solicit a room at the home of a stranger, he was turned away at gunpoint. Meanwhile, a storm had blown over and the temperature had dropped. Nevertheless, Brown trudged on and walked the rest of the way during the night to Canandaigua. When he arrived the next morning, he was debilitated by exhaustion and exposure, yet attended his appointed convention. Bouts of fever followed in the next days and on Nov. 1 he went to the home of friends John and Laura Mosher in Canandaigua. The expectation was that all he needed was some rest. But, apparently, he already was in a much weakened condition. Instead of recovering, he became gravely ill, and on November 7, he died at the Mosher’s home of what was then called "brain fever" or dropsy (presumed to be what is now known as encephalitis).

The American Freeman in Wisconsin, where his mother had moved, wrote a lengthy obituary, an excerpt of which follows:

He sustained for the last four years past, the relation of Agent to the Eastern N. Y. Anti-Slavery Society. In every department of the Anti-Slavery enterprise, he exhibited a spirit that could not rest while so much was at stake and so much required to be done. In circulating anti-slavery publications, in urging religious denominations to practice the principles they avowed, and by their presses ministers, influence and benevolent societies, to assist our colored brother, who was bleeding in the porch of the sanctuary—in bringing the political parties at the north, from under the thralldom in which they were kept by the slave-power—in assisting, as a member of the vigilance committee, trembling Americans, to the number of not less than one thousand, to the shelter afforded by a monarchial government, from the inhuman monsters walking at large and claiming property in human flesh. He was a pattern to believers—a living argument against unbelief.