02 03 John Brown Kin: Family Artifact - Oliver Brown's Bible 04 05 15 16 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 31 32 33

Family Artifact - Oliver Brown's Bible

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At the John Brown Remembered Academic Symposium held at Harpers Ferry, WV in October 2009, I had the pleasure of meeting Ian Barford. Ian is an actor, documentary film maker, and the proud father of twins! Last week, Ian traveled to Texas to do interviews for the documentary he is currently working on about John Brown. He traveled to Austin first to interview my good friend Evan Carton, author of Patriotic Treason. He then drove up to Allen to interview me. While he was here I showed him my prized family artifact - Oliver Brown's Bible that he carried throughout his years in Kansas.

The Bible is small, 2 1/2 inches x 3 1/2 inches and just over an inch thick. Just the right size to be carried in an inside pocket of a wool overcoat. The cover is black leather embossed with an ornate design. On the spine, the words Holy Bible are embossed in gold. For a book that is over one hundred sixty years old, the binding is realitively tight, the cover only slightly torn.

On the inside back cover the following is written in pencil, in an ornate old-timey script:
This Bible was carried all through the Kansas troubles by Oliver Brown.
On the left hand inside back page is written the name of the original owner of the Bible, Oliver Brown, in ink and in a beautiful calligraphic hand. 

But it is what can be found on the front inside cover that makes this Bible so valuable to me personally --  in pencil, written over and over again, in the handwriting of a young girl perfecting her signature, is the name Annie Brown. It makes me smile to think of young Annie, my great-great grandmother, scrounging around for a piece of paper to practice her penmanship on, and noticing a clean white space inside the cover of big brother's Bible. The temptation was more than she could resist. I imagine that she got into a great deal of trouble when it was discovered that she used the inside cover of the Lord's word for her penmanship practice.

Annie had the Bible in her possession when she moved to California in 1863, and it is one of the items that escaped the fire that distroyed her house and most of her belonging in 1896. Annie passed the Bible to her granddaughter Beatrice Cook Keesey, my grandmother.

Faintly written on the title page is 19-14 Psalms. I looked up the verse - "Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults."  Hmm, I wonder who found this verse so compelling that they wrote it in the front of the Bible?

I decided to look through the Bible and see what other verses were highlighted or underlined. Between the pages of Bible I found the following pieces of paper:
 It is amazing that so many interesting pieces of history, and so many unanswered questions can be found in such a small book. 

The Poems

This first one is about a mother that has lost her newborn. Annie, her daughter Bertha, and her daughter Beatrice all experienced this loss first hand. I wonder which one of these brave women cut this poem from the paper and saved it in the bible, and did it bring some closure or understanding to them to read this touching poem?
 
            AFTER THE FUNERAL
How can I pass this night of loneliness,
  Of Sorrow, and or rest that is not rest?
How can I teach my restless arms to know
  There is no chold to slumber on my breast?
How can I, with the waiting cradle near,
Teach my poor hear that baby is not here?

Oh! in the world there are this very night
  Mothers whose arms are full of happiness!
And dainty cribs, whose pillows white as snow
  Many a little golden head doth press.
And there are lullibies, sweet lullabies,
To woo soft slumber into baby-eyes.

And I - it is not very long ago -
  Ah me! not long ago since also I
Could take my little child within my arms.
  And sing with happy heart a lullaby,
While near my side the cradle-pillow white
Waited it tiny burden for the night.


Last night. Oh! sad last night! and little one
  Was still with me, but not upon my breast.
I only knelt beside the little crib
  And wept because my darling in her rest
Was whiter than the snow, and still, and cold!
The baby whom I never more should hold.


To-day they laid her 'neath the daisied ground
  Oh, God! to think that she is sleeping there,
Beyond the reach of loving mother-arms!
  Beyond the reach of mother's warchful care
Back to my arms their loving burden bring:
Once more my lips their slumber song would 
    sing!
   Unknown


A Petition, with this prefix: "My little boy, six years of age, brought me yesterday a 'reward of merit' from his teacher, and said 'Little mamma, keep my ticket for me; and If I ask God every night to make me good, I'll get another next week - won't I?'

"Oh, mamma!" (and he gently came and nestled at my side). "Dear mamma, keep my ticket, and be very sure you hide it, please, where naughty fingers cannot find it to destroy." And his arms were clasped around me, my gentle, noble boy.

"And, mamma, - little mamma," (and his voice to wishpers grew,) "if I'll be good to Johnnie, to my papa, and to you, - "If I'll 'notice little sister,' and 'member 'bout my hat, will I get another ticket, say, mamma, just like that?

"And say my 'Now I lay me,' very slow, and always let my brother have the nicest place, and kiss you 'fore I get in my trundle near the cradle, where little sister lies, I'll get another ticket if I'm good? You know I tries."

As I clasped him to my bosom, the tears my eyelids wet: I told my boy of Jesus, and I bade him ne'er forget  that He loved good little children. "Pray, darling, while He's near: Ask Him to make you 'good,' my child: He turns no deaf'ning ear."

Father, I tremble often as I meet these earnest eyes: through the burden's sweet, 'tis heavy: to nurture such a prize. As this, fair, pure, spotless child, I must pure and spotless be: Help, Father, that I bring It unpolluted unto Thee.

Thou, "who gavest to my guiding hand this wand'rer" to lead through paths that oft are lone and dark, where feet so often bleed, bruised and pierced by cruel thorns, oh, leave me not alone. To guide him to those gates of pearl, Thou he must lean upon.
                                                                         Unknown



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