Description

Holograph, signedIn this letter, Mary Merrick Brooks discusses the attempted arrest by U.S. officers of Franklin B. Sanborn of Concord for refusing to obey the summons to appear before the Harper's Ferry Investigating Committee. Mary M. Brooks says: "One of the officers told the Deputy Sherriff that he had been in all kinds of mobs and in all kinds of danger, but he never felt in such fear before---Those manacled hands which he was obliged to hold up over the heads of the crowd on account of the pain caused by the handcuffs being too tight aroused the crowd to great indignation." Mary M. Brooks ran down the street crying "murder, murder, help, help." Mr. Sanborn "owed his deliverance mainly to his sister and Mr. Bigelow. Mr. B. is a sturdy blacksmith and he fought with the officers until the crowd assembled. Sandborn [sic] is a perfect John Brown man I fear he will be killed." Sanborn "walks the streets and keeps the school the same as ever, don't mean to hide, don't mean to go off--- ..." "The last words the Martyr Hosmer said were, that if they carried Sandborn [sic] off, he should be carried over his dead body." [The deportation of Mr. Sanborn was prevented by the application of a writ of habeas corpus. Mr. Rufus Hosmer died from the effects of the excitement caused by his witnessing the arrest of Sanborn.]

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Boston Public Library

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