Remarkable handwritten page from John Brown's personal memorandum book, 3.5 x 5.75, circa 1856–1858, with notations on both sides in his hand. The most significant is a note indicating a meeting with the great abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass: "Meet F. Douglas at home on or about Nov. 7th." Others on that side include: "John Brown Jr., Lindenville, Ashtabula, Oh."; and "Meet at Iowa City & stop with Jesse Bowen"; "Philo. P. Stewart, Jonas Jones, Tabor, Iowa"; and "Parker Earle's Special Friend, Dwight, Ill." On the opposite side, Brown records several purchases, listing amounts paid for board, horse feed, flour, nets, and other items; three entries mention his son Jason, who was with him in Kansas but not at Harpers Ferry. In very good condition, with irregular staining, and some of Brown's handwriting traced over in an unknown hand.
Accompanied by a letter of provenance by Presbyterian minister and abolitionist James Miller McKim, signed "J. M. McKim," two pages, 5 x 8, American Freedman's Union Commission, July 30, 1865, in part: "The only things I have in the way of autographs of John Brown are a letter to me, with which I would not part, and a pocket memorandum book of the Martyr's which Mrs. Brown gave me at North Elba on the day of the burial. I have cut out and here enclose the two first leaves of this book. I don't know that they will at all serve your purpose, but any one that knows John Brown's hand-writing will recognise it at once in these memoranda."
In 1859, Reverend James Miller McKim and his wife Sarah escorted Mary Brown, the wife of abolitionist John Brown, to Virginia, after his failed raid on Harpers Ferry. The McKims were accompanied in this effort by Hector Tyndale, another Philadelphia abolitionist. After visiting her husband in jail in Charlestown, Virginia, Mary Brown, along with the McKims and Tyndale, stayed in Harpers Ferry until after John Brown's execution on December 2, 1859. The McKims prayed and held hands with Mary Brown until the hour of execution passed. Afterward, they assisted her in claiming Brown's body and escorted her to Philadelphia; McKim continued with her to his burial place, the John Brown Farm in remote North Elba, New York, near present-day Lake Placid, where he received this historic relic of the martyr.
