"Anything Mr. or Mrs. Stearns Desires": How Edward Brackett Got Into John Brown's Jail Cell

In late 1859, the Massachusetts sculptor Edward Augustus Brackett traveled to Charlestown, Virginia to sculpt John Brown from life. When Brackett invoked the name of his patron Mary Stearns, Brown relented.

Part of the John Brown: America250 Roundtable series on an American hero. This discussion features Eleanor Heartney, author of "Edward Augustus Brackett: The Life, Art and Tumultuous Times of an American Original," and Laura McDonald, Collections Manager and Registrar, Tufts University. art critic Eleanor Heartney, Brackett's great-great-granddaughter and author of Edward Augustus Brackett: Life, Art, and Tumultuous Times of an American Original, tells the story of the bust her ancestor produced, the daguerreotype he worked from, the journalist Ned House and his dispatches smuggled out of Charlestown in Brackett's trousers, and how Mary Stearns's plaster copies turned the bust into one of the first viral images of the abolitionist movement.

TRANSCRIPT:

Louis A. DeCaro, Jr.: And so, Eleanor, thank you for being with us. Please share.

Eleanor Heartney: All right, thank you. Thank you. I got involved in this all because I was doing a biography of my great-great-grandfather. This was a COVID project, digging around and discovering all this stuff about an ancestor I had otherwise very little information on. I discovered this very fascinating story about his relationship with John Brown.

Edward Brackett and how busts "went viral" in the 1860s (0:30)

Brackett was a sculptor living in Massachusetts. He was very involved with the Boston abolitionists. He actually sculpted quite a few of them, did busts of them. I should say that busts were the currency at the time. It was how people branded themselves, in a way. Instead of images going viral on social media, the bust went viral. It was a very important thing for people to have these busts.

He did busts of a number of the famous Boston abolitionists, and he comes into this story this way: he was in Boston and happened to catch a glimpse of John Brown, this very impressive looking man walking the streets of Boston.

Catching a glimpse of John Brown on a Boston street (1:17)

It turned out it was John Brown. This was shortly before the Harpers Ferry raid. He was in Boston trying to get funds together for the raid. This is actually a daguerreotype that was taken of him around that time.

One thing I want to point out: not only do Brackett and John Brown share sort of amazing facial hair, but also John Brown, up until shortly before this trip to Boston, was clean-shaven. He ended up growing the beard as a way of disguising himself, although of course he was very distinctive with the beard. But then a lot of people had beards back then. I think it's interesting, because of course the beard has in many ways become his trademark, as we shall see.

So Brackett catches a glimpse of this very impressive person. He asks someone who it is and they say, "Oh, that's old John Brown." And he tucks it away in his head.

After the raid: an idea for a bust from the jail cell (2:30)

Not long after that is the raid, the failure of the raid, John Brown's trial, and John Brown languishing in jail. Brackett has this idea that he wants to go down to Charlestown, Virginia, visit the jail, and do a bust of John Brown, because he was so impressed by what he stood for and also just the way he looked.

Brackett did not have the money to do that. So he went to a number of the Boston abolitionists. Some of them turned him down. William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips were not interested. Then he went to George Stearns. Laura is going to talk more about George Stearns, but George Stearns was one of the Secret Six, the six people who funded the Harpers Ferry raid.

This is after the raid. Brown is in jail. Brackett goes to talk to him, asks him if he can come up with some money for him to go down. And Mary Stearns, actually, George's wife, is very enthusiastic about the whole project, and they give him the money.

In Charlestown: dead ends at the jail (3:48)

So he travels down to Charlestown, and things are very, very upsetting there. There's just a lot of turmoil. Brown is in jail. People are afraid that he's going to be busted out of jail. Tensions are riding high.

Brackett checks into a hotel and says that he's from Massachusetts. So of course that identifies him as probably an abolitionist. And he lets people know what his purpose is down there. So he's trying to get in. What he needs to do is to get into the jail. He needs to see John Brown in order to make the measurements that he needs in order to create this bust.

He just keeps running into dead ends. They just won't do it. Particularly the jailer is adamantly against it. No one wants this. He's almost ready to give up.

The chief jailer has to go to trial for some of the other co-conspirators of Brown, leaving the under-jailer in charge, who was much more sympathetic to Brackett's cause. So the under-jailer agrees to let him go into the jail if he doesn't step over the threshold, so that he can then say that he never let him into the jail cell. They set this whole thing up, and John Brown's lawyer is there in the jail with him. So Brackett is going to tell him how to make the measurements, what to do, give him the information that he needs. I want to read now a little excerpt from one of the accounts. Brackett wrote a lot of accounts about this. It was a very important episode in his life.

Brackett's account: "Nonsense. Give the money to the poor" (5:37)

This is what he wrote about his encounter with John Brown. He's in the jail. He's looking through the open door:

Through the open door, I saw the object of my pilgrimage, quietly reading, but heavily loaded with chains. He was sitting in a chair with both hands chained and his feet chained to the floor. Only those who saw him in that miserable prison can have any adequate conception of the moral grandeur of his presence. Everybody and everything was dwarfed in comparison.

He looked up from his book when addressed by his counsel and listened attentively to the request conveyed from me. Impressive as the scene was, I could not restrain a smile when his reply repeated the very words of Mrs. Stearns: "Nonsense. Nonsense. Better give the money to the poor."

When Mr. Griswold said he must remember that he was becoming famous and that posterity would like to see how he looked, the prophecy was again fulfilled, and the response became even more emphatic: "No consequence to posterity how I looked. Give the money to the poor."

For some time, Mr. Griswold labored to change his purpose, but finally turned to me, still standing outside the door, and said, "It's no use. He will not yield one jot. I am sorry for your disappointment, but it's useless arguing further."

Invoking Mrs. Stearns: Brown relents (7:21)

The moment then had come for the last resort. "Please, please say to him that I have come at the express wish and pecuniary expense of Mrs. Stearns, and that she will be deeply disappointed if I return without the measurements for a bust." I watched his face eagerly while Mr. Griswold repeated to him these words, on which hung all my hopes. As he listened, I could see signs of interest mingled with surprise in his face. Then a grave thoughtfulness. Presently his hands dropped at his sides, and he seemed lost in thought. Then, lifting his head and straightening himself up, he said with emotion, "Anything Mr. or Mrs. Stearns desires. Take the measurements."

And so that was how Brackett was able to get the information he needed in order to do the bust.

Ned House and dispatches smuggled out of Charlestown (8:14)

There's an interesting coda to this visit down to Charlestown. He took his measurements. He went back to his hotel and was getting ready to go back up to Massachusetts when there was a knock on the door.

While he had been down in Charlestown, he had run into an old acquaintance who was a reporter for the New York Tribune. The reporter was actually masquerading as a correspondent for a pro-slavery publication in order to get information. Meanwhile, he had been writing very funny, satiric, acerbic reports on what was going on down in Charlestown and sending them back. But things were getting kind of hot for him, because people were worried that someone was going to try to spring Brown. They were very upset about the way they were being characterized and caricatured in these reports.

So this reporter knocked on Brackett's door, knowing he was going back up to Massachusetts, and he said, "Listen, I need your help. I want to help you get dressed for the trip." He had Brackett take off his trousers, and he produced his report. It was a week's worth of dispatches tied together. They wrapped them around Brackett's legs, put his clothes back on, and Brackett went on the train and went straight to the New York Tribune, to Horace Greeley, the editor, and said, "I've come from Charlestown, and I have something for you." He took off his trousers, and there it was. So that report was then published.

Sculpting the bust: idealized, heroic, "like Michelangelo's Moses" (10:19)

After this, Brackett of course had the hard work of actually making the bust. Using the measurements, and also referring to the daguerreotype I showed earlier, he created this bust, which, as he himself admitted, was somewhat idealized, very heroic. He eliminated certain details. I think many people have said that it sort of puts them in the mind of Michelangelo's Moses. It's got a very visionary, far-off look in the expression. It was a very powerful and successful bust.

Mary Stearns and the viral bust (11:08)

He presented it to Mary Stearns, who was delighted with it. He had given her a plaster cast. She had it redone in marble, because this was kind of how things worked then, and had many copies, many plaster copies, sent to various people who were interested in Brown.

The bust then ended up having quite a bit of exposure in the run-up to the Civil War. On Emancipation Day there was a party in which it was unveiled. When Robert Shaw's Massachusetts regiment was sent off to war, William Lloyd Garrison was seen with his hand on the bust. It became a kind of emblem. It was one of the first sort of, as I was saying, viral, one of the first sort of brandings of John Brown as a kind of martyr, fiery, visionary figure. It was very important in establishing who he was, what he was, and it became a kind of touchstone for many people.

Glory, glory, hallelujah. Glory, glory, hallelujah. Glory, glory, hallelu. His truth is marching on.