Raynors HCA 2014-11
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 11/6/2014
Rare carte de visit of a young boy holding John Brown’s Sharps Carbine, with R.A. Lewis of New York imprint on verso, and ink manuscript “This gun taken from the hands of John Brown at Harper’s Ferry, now in possession of H.T. Drum, New York. The lad holding it is Drum’s son. Presented to me by Mr. Drum Oct. 4, 1870.” Fine condition. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 allowed the two territories to decide the issue of slavery by a popular ballot. The fight in Kansas was so intense that the state earned the nickname of “Bleeding Kansas.” As Missouri pro-slavery “Ruffians” flocked to Kansas, the New England abolitionists bankrolled “Free-Soilers” to move to the settlement of Lawrence, Kansas. Henry Ward Beecher raised money to purchase Sharp's rifles for use by antislavery forces in Kansas. Rifles, said Beecher, are “a greater moral agency than the Bible” in the fight against slavery. The guns were packed in crates labeled "Bibles" so they would not arouse suspicion. Soon the Sharps rifles sent to Kansas were referred to as “Beecher’s Bibles.” In 1856, after abolitionists were attacked in Lawrence, John Brown led a raid on scattered cabins along the Pottawatomie Creek, killing five people. Kansas would not become a state until 1861, after the Confederate states seceded. John Brown had another plan to bring about an end to slavery, a slave uprising. Brown contracted with Charles Blair, a forge master in Collinsville, Connecticut, to make 950 pikes for a dollar a piece. Brown would issue the pike to the slaves as they revolted. On 16 October 1859, Brown led his group to Harpers Ferry where he took over the arsenal and waited for the slaves to revolt. The revolt never came. Two days later Robert E. Lee and his troops overran the raiders and captured John Brown. Brown was found guilty of murder, treason, and of inciting slave insurrection and on 2 December 1859, he was hanged.
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