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Updated: May 10, 2025
Susan's thoughts during the summer of 1856 often strayed from woman's rights meetings toward Kansas, where her brother Merritt had settled on a claim near Osawatomie. Well aware of his eagerness to help John Brown, she knew that he must be in the thick of the bloody antislavery struggle.
In October, 1855, John Brown himself arrived with an adequate supply of rifles and some broadswords and revolvers. The process of organization and drill thereupon began, and when the Wakarusa War occurred early in December, 1855, John Brown was on hand with a small company from Osawatomie to assist in the defense of Lawrence.
He spent the night without sleep, wandering through the woods and fields. Three days later while Brown and his huntsmen were still hiding in the timber, the people of his own settlement at Osawatomie held a public meeting which was attended by the entire male population. They unanimously adopted resolutions condemning in the bitterest terms the deed.
Brown stood rifle in hand to receive them. "This," said Stevens to Washington, "is John Brown." "Osawatomie Brown of Kansas," the old man added with a stiffening of his figure. He then handed a pike to each of the slaves captured at Bellair and Allstead's: "Stand guard over these white men." The negroes took the pikes and held them gingerly.
His restless spirit left him no peace. He was now in Boston, now in Springfield, Massachusetts, now in New York, again in Ohio, or Illinois. He was giving up the work in Ohio to follow his sons into Kansas. He had planned to move there two years before and abandoned the idea. He had at last fully determined to go. On October the sixth, his party reached the family settlement at Osawatomie.
The full gray beard could not mask the terrible mouth which he had studied one day in Kansas. And nothing could dim the flame that burned in his blue-gray eyes. He recognized him instantly. "Why, aren't you old Osawatomie Brown of Kansas, whom I once held there as my prisoner?" "Yes, but you didn't keep me." "I have a written communication from Colonel Lee." "Read it."
The opposing forces finally met on the plains of Kansas, and extreme Northern opposition became personified in John Brown of Osawatomie. He was born in Connecticut in May, 1800, of New England ancestry, the sixth generation from the Mayflower. A Calvinist, a mystic, a Bible-reading Puritan, he was trained to anti-slavery sentiments in the family of Owen Brown, his father.
Her father, leaving her in charge, traveled West for his long-dreamed-of visit with his sons in Kansas, with Daniel R., now postmaster at Leavenworth, and with Merritt and his young wife, Mary Luther, in their log cabin at Osawatomie. As a release from her pent-up energy, Susan turned to hard physical work. "Superintended the plowing of the orchard," she recorded in her diary.
When, six weeks later, notice came of the attack upon Lawrence, John Brown, Junior, went with the company of Osawatomie Rifles to the relief of the town, while the elder Brown with a little company of six moved in the same direction.
He recognized Colonel Washington, leaped from the engine and rushed to his side. On one knee, a few feet to his left, knelt a man with a carbine in his hand pulling the lever to reload. Colonel Washington waved his arm. "That's Osawatomie." The Lieutenant sprang twelve feet at him.
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