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Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
(SLAVERY & ABOLITION.) Mary H. Maury. Letter describing a conversation with John Brown, hours after his capture at Harpers Ferry. Partial Autograph Letter to her mother Elizabeth Gilpin Maury. 4 [of 6] pages, 6 x 3¾ inches, plus the remaining two pages in photocopy only; minimal wear. Needwood (Rockville, MD?), 18 October 1859
"He believed it to be a holy & just cause, and his mission, and he did not repent of what he had done."
This letter was written by Mary Henrietta Maury (1843-1904), a young woman who was vacationing not far from Harpers Ferry at the time of John Brown's raid. Here, on the same day that Brown's besieged raiders were captured in the Harpers Ferry engine house, she writes home to assure her mother she is well--and to share a second-hand account of the raid. Her informant spoke with John Brown within hours of his capture.
"The disturbance at Harper's Ferry is all put down, and we are all safe and quiet. . . . Mr. Horsey has been over to Harper's Ferry this morning, and says this abolitionist party took refuge in the engine house at the Armory and defended themselves desperately, but a party of Frederick militia fought them last night and this morning the Marines from Washington stormed the engine house. The greater part of the abolitionists were killed, some few taken prisoners and about six or eight escaped. They were headed by Capt. Brown of Kansas celebrity who is now wounded and a prisoner. He told Mr. Horsey that he had lost one son in Kansas & two now at Harper's Ferry in the cause of freeing the slaves, that he believed it to be a holy & just cause, and his mission, and he did not repent of what he had done. Mr. H thinks there were about thirty, forty or fifty abolitionists (the newspaper exaggerates terribly)."
Provenance: found among the Maury-Gilpin family papers (see lots 128 and 129). The final leaf of this letter, consisting of two cross-written pages, was lost by a previous owner while making a photocopy at a public library. The photocopy is present, at least; it contains no further mention of John Brown.
