Page:John Brown (W. E. B. Du Bois).djvu/260

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252
JOHN BROWN

arrival they all hurriedly packed up—Owen Brown, Realf, Kagi, Cook, Stevens, Tidd, Leeman, Moffett, Parsons, and the colored man Richardson, together with their recruits, Gill and Taylor. The Coppocs were to come later. "The leave-taking between them and the people of Springdale was one of tears. Ties which had been knitting through many weeks were sundered, and not only so, but the natural sorrow at parting was intensified by the consciousness of all that the future was full of hazard for Brown and his followers. Before quitting the house and home of Mr. Maxon, where they had spent so long a time, each of Brown's band wrote his name in pencil on the wall of the parlor, where the writing still can be seen by the interested traveler." They all immediately started for Canada by way of Chicago and Detroit. At Chicago they had to wait twelve hours, and the first hotel refused to accommodate Richardson at the breakfast table. John Brown immediately sought another place. The company arrived shortly in Chatham and stopped at a hotel kept by Mr. Barber, a colored man. While at Chatham, John Brown, as Anderson relates, "made a profound impression upon those who saw or became acquainted with him. Some supposed him to be a staid but modernized 'Quaker'; others a solid business man, from 'somewhere,' and without question a philanthropist. His long white beard, thoughtful and reverent brow aud physiognomy, his sturdy, measured tread, as he circulated about with hands, portrayed in the