The Preludes of Harper's Ferry (Classic Reprint)

Download or read book The Preludes of Harper's Ferry (Classic Reprint) written by Wendell Phillips Garrison and published by . This book was released on 2015-08-04 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Preludes of Harper's Ferry In the first winter month of 1838-39, a tall, spare man, under middle age, unbearded and of grave countenance, a rustic by his garb, entered a stationer's store at 108 Broadway, New York, and bought a little book for the pocket. A common-looking affair, as we now view it in a period of cheap paper, it contained about fifty ruled leaves, and was bound in boards, backed with leather, and sided with marbled paper. On the inside of the cover the buyer penciled his name, with date and place of purchase, which he presently repeated in ink on the opposite fly-leaf, as follows: " Memoranum Book of John Brown Franklin Portage Co Ohio Bought Decem 3d 1838 of G and C Carvill & Co Price $0.25." The price, two shillings, would be thought twice too dear to-day, and was equivalent in purchasing power to at least fifty cents of our present money. In the rural districts it meant an outlay of two " square meals," as a cash account on page 29, for April 20, 1840, shows: "To do for 2 dinners 0.25." Tested by this gauge, the poor have not grown poorer in the last half century of progress. The date, December 3, is noticeable. Our " Man of the Second of December" was entering on the first of the twenty-one years yet allotted him on this earth. Other men turn over a new leaf with the calendar year; by chance he seized the atom of time which was to mark New Style for the remnant of his days. Nearly enough, too, the memorandum-book stands for a parting of the ways in John Brown's worldly affairs. A divinity student turned land-surveyor and then tanner, he cured his hides at Hudson, Ohio, till 1825, afterwards at Richmond, near Meadville, Penn., till 1835, then at Franklin, Ohio, where he fell a victim to the well-known disease of buying farm lands to cut up prematurely into village lots. He was caught by the panic of 1837 and beggared. He was now free to choose an occupation more consonant with his tastes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.