Seth Kaller, Inc.

Announcing a convention featuring B. C. Golliday, “who was with BROWN in Kansas,” and former Iowa judge E. Graham, “with remarks on Slavery and the Harper’s Ferry affair.”

John Brown’s execution by the Commonwealth of Virginia on December 2, 1859, made him a martyr to thousands of abolitionists in the northern United States and deepened sectional tensions that led to the Civil War.

[JOHN BROWN]. “John Brown ‘Still Lives’” Printed Broadside, ca. February 1, 1860, Lyons, Iowa. 1 p., 11 x 8 in.

Inventory #27298.99       Price: $25,000

In eastern Iowa, local attorney and former judge Edward Graham of DeWitt used Brown’s execution as an opportunity to discuss slavery and Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry. On December 9, he spoke to a meeting in Clinton, Iowa, on the Mississippi River, organized by Republican hotelkeeper William Wentworth (1807-1880). Among the attendees were a large number of pro-slavery Democrats, and Graham attempted “a little justice with John Brown, and rank[ed] him with Cromwell and Washington—and though careful not to justify Brown’s invasion, yet credited him with true heroism.”[1]

On December 30, Graham and attorney Alonzo J. Grover (1829-1891) of LaSalle County, Illinois, spoke on “Brown’s Invasion!” to a meeting in Morrison, Illinois, approximately twelve miles east of Clinton, Iowa. Broadsides advertising the meeting bore the headline “John Brown Still Lives!” Graham and Grover were also accompanied by printer Benjamin C. Golliday, who spoke to the audience about John Brown’s career in Kansas when Golliday was there a few years earlier.

This broadside announces a convention to be held one month later in Lyons, Iowa, twenty miles east of DeWitt, Iowa, and just north of Clinton on the Mississippi River. Using the same headline, “John Brown ‘Still Lives,’” Graham and Golliday again spoke on the same themes. In this case, they also allowed an opportunity for “the Opposition” to speak to the audience.

Complete Transcript

JOHN BROWN

‘STILL LIVES’

A CONVENTION WILL BE HELD AT METROPOLITAN HALL,

LYONS, WEDNESDAY EVE. FEB. 1, 1860.

            B. C. GOLLIDAY, who was with BROWN in Kansas, will speak of him as known there. Hon. E. GRAHAM, of Dewitt, will follow with remarks on Slavery and the Harper’s Ferry affair.

            Each alternate half hour will be offered, if desired, for remarks by the Opposition. Open. 6 1-2 o’clock.

ADMISSION, FIVE CENTS to pay expenses. LADIES FREE.

Edward Graham (1818-1860) was born in Pennsylvania and pursued a career in the law. He and his family moved to DeWitt, Iowa, in 1849. He again practiced law and was elected county prosecuting attorney in 1851. He served as county judge of Clinton County from 1853 to 1855, before returning to the practice of law. He also served as one of the editors of the DeWitt Standard newspaper. He died of accidental poisoning on May 14, 1860, by taking strychnine instead of quinine for a fever.

Benjamin C. Golliday (b. 1836) was born in Illinois and learned the printing trade. He was in Kansas in January 1856, when he gave a speech to a printer’s festival in Lawrence. In 1857, he married Kate E. Palmer. He was later the co-editor of the Fulton Weekly Courier in Fulton, Iowa, from July 1859 until March 1860. In February 1860, he served as the recording secretary for a Republican club organized in Fulton. He later served briefly as the editor of the Republican in Camanche, Iowa, from June to September 1860, though a tornado destroy the newspaper’s office and three hundred other buildings in June 1860. After spending some time in northern Iowa, he was by 1862 editing a newspaper in Sidney, in southwestern Iowa. In 1867, he began work as a Methodist preacher in Nebraska.

John Brown (1800-1859) was born in Connecticut but grew up in Ohio. At age 16, he studied in Connecticut to be a Congregationalist minister, but he ran out of money and had trouble with his eyes. He pursued various businesses in Pennsylvania and Ohio. After the death of Elijah P. Lovejoy at the hands of anti-abolitionists in 1837, Brown publicly vowed to “consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery!” Brown moved to Kansas in 1855, to help anti-slavery settlers protect themselves. That May, Brown and other abolitionist settlers killed five pro-slavery settlers. In November, Brown returned to the East and spent two years raising funds in New England and developing a plan for a direct strike against slavery. In October 1859, he led a group of 21 men to Harpers Ferry, Virginia, where they briefly seized the federal armory before local citizens trapped Brown and his men in a fire engine house before the arrival of U.S. Marines. Four of Brown’s men were killed, and he was wounded and captured along with the rest of his men. The Commonwealth of Virginia tried and convicted Brown of murder, slave insurrection, and treason. He was executed on December 2. Six of his fellow raiders were executed later. The 1859 raid made him a martyr to the antislavery cause and was instrumental in heightening sectional animosities that led to the American Civil War. 

Condition: Some wrinkles; scattered staining; chipped edges with loss at upper right, not affecting text.