"Marvelously Successful": Edward Brackett's Bust of John Brown, Sculpted from Life in a Virginia Jail

In November 1859, as John Brown awaited execution in Charlestown, the Boston sculptor Edward Augustus Brackett walked into his cell with measuring tools and sketch pads.

In this clip from the John Brown Project's monthly roundtable, John Brown historian and biographer Dr. Louis A. DeCaro, Jr. reads Hoyt's letter aloud and tells the story behind it. He is joined for the broader conversation by Eleanor Heartney, author of Edward Augustus Brackett: Life, Art, and Tumultuous Times of an American Original, and Laura McDonald, the Tufts University curator who rediscovered Brackett's bust.

TRANSCRIPT:

I want to welcome you all. It's such a great pleasure. We keep rejoicing in the fact that we are able to do this, that we're able to get together for monthly roundtables where we can make more friends and talk more about John Brown.

We have some special guests tonight because our theme was "John Brown or Bust." We're talking about, especially, the Edward Brackett bust as well as the Edmonia Lewis bust. We're talking about a very particular expression, historically and in art, and its significance as we talk about John Brown as he's remembered in bust art.

Tonight's guests, and the man who went into Brown's jail cell (0:46)

We have two wonderful guests with us tonight: Eleanor Heartney and Laura McDonald. I'm going to share a little bit about both of our guests, and then we're going to go right into talking with Eleanor, who is the author of Edward Augustus Brackett: Life, Art, and Tumultuous Times of an American Original. This is the man who went into the jail and met John Brown, took measurements and sketches, and made a bust of Brown.

George Hoyt: the boyish young lawyer with a Kansas connection (1:14)

John Brown, when he was put on trial, and you may know the story of his trial, was first given a couple of Southern lawyers. He got rid of them as quickly as he could, but of course they didn't intend to slow the trial down.

A young law graduate was sent down by the name of George Hoyt, who had a relative that had actually been killed in Kansas. George and his sister had actually gone to Kansas, so he had a strong disposition toward Brown because of the Kansas situation. He was very young: he was 21, but he looked 16. In fact, he was so young that even Judge Parker, who presided over Brown's case, said to him, "Are you sure you're really of age?"

Hoyt was a very smart young man. He was sent down to spy, and everybody kind of knew it, and eventually he had to leave. But when Brown got two actual distinguished lawyers, Hoyt continued to help out.

"Marvelously successful": Hoyt's letter to Brackett (2:18)

It's interesting. I found this little note. This is what he writes, having seen the Brackett bust:

I have examined your bust of John Brown with great pleasure. It is due you, and not less those who are not familiar with the face of this immortal friend of humanity, to say your efforts have been marvelously successful. Every feature of his face is indelibly daguerreotyped upon my mind. This bust, while it is a true reflection of his external features, admirably displays, whether in that lofty brow, that invincible eye, or that determined lip, his irresistible manhood, in the presence of which men of mean mold cannot help bowing in self-disgust. I hope your disinterested labors will be fully rewarded by the appreciation of the public.

He was very truly your friend, George Hoyt.