Concord is as dull as ever, Louisa May Alcott wrote a friend on November 8, 1859, though we make fitful efforts to enliven it with a Charade party the other day. Franklin Benjamin Sanborn put Father in an old-fashioned suit on a pedestal in the exact attitude of the Benjamin Franklin statue. Very fine he looked with his white hair, cocked hat, knee buckles, and frills. Sanborn's name came up in conversation a few days later. A woman asked me if I knew of some school her child might attend and, in a series of quite personal remarks, I recommended the Sanborn Seminary, where my own nine darling siblings were imbibing knowledge copiously.

In his jail cell in Virginia, in chains, bleeding from his still fresh bayonet and saber wounds, John Brown read the Bible. Those seven of Brown’s men who survived the raid traveled through the now perilous Pennsylvania mountains, stalked by manhunters. Two were quickly caught and sent back to Virginia to be hanged. One somehow managed to get to safety in Concord, Massachusetts, where he was surreptitiously put on a train bound for Canada.

I interfered with the perpetuation of slavery, John Brown admitted at his trial. This has been been fairly proved. But had I so interfered on behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends, whether father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or children, or any of that class, and suffered and sacrificed what I have in such interference, that would have been all right. Every man in this court would have deemed that all right, an act worthy of reward, not of punishment. This court acknowledges, I suppose, the validity of the laws of God, Brown went on. I see a book here which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament. It teaches us to remember them that are in bonds, as if you were yourself bound with them. I have merely endeavored to act upon that instruction. To have interfered, as I have always freely admitted I have done, in behalf of the despised poor, was not wrong, but right. If it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life and mingle it with the blood of millions of slaves whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit. Let it be done.

Sanborn and others of his colleagues in the so-called Secret Six kept busy, in the meantime, explaining away their knowledge of, and participation in, what Brown had done. We did not know that Brown meant to begin there, in Virginia, at Harper's Ferry, Sanborn insisted. Like Gerrit Smith, Sanborn felt justified in making public statements which told a part of the truth, but not the whole truth. We expected he would go farther west, into a region less accessible, where his movements might escape notice for weeks, except as the alleged acts of some marauding party.

At the Town Hall, a meeting was called to make arrangements for celebrating the day of Captain Brown's execution, Alcott wrote in his Diary on November 28th. Emerson and Thoreau were chosen to be in the committee to prepare services appropriate to the occasion. Sanborn is mixed up in it also, but Thoreau is taking the lead part in all this.

The Memorial Service for John Brown is scheduled for Friday, December 2nd, Bronson Alcott wrote two days later.We do not intend to have any speeches made on the occasion, but have selected appropriate passages from Brown's words, and from assorted poets and from the Scriptures. These will be variously read by Thoreau, Emerson, and myself, chiefly.

Sanborn wrote to his fifty-nine-year-old mother in New Hampshire the day before the fifty-nine-year-old John Brown was executed in Virginia: From the newspapers and the other accounts of me and my connection with Captain Brown, very likely you may feel some anxiety about me. There is no occasion, I assure you, for alarm. In the first place, there is no evidence against me as a criminal, in any fair court. The only way of arresting me will be as a witness. A law from 1846 allows witnesses to be suddenly arrested, and carried out of the State, but this cannot be enforced here, because the Supreme Court will prevent it. No officer here would venture to kidnap a man. The ordinary process for summoning a witness is slow, and would give me time to escape, if I wished to do so. I don't intend, however, to be arrested.

John Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859.

I am now quite certain the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood, Brown had written in a short note he’d handed to one of his attendants as he departed the jail to be hung from the scaffolds.I had vainly flattered myself that, without very much bloodshed, it might be done.

I had no idea Governor Wise considered my execution so important, Brown said as he got into the wagon that awaited him, seating himself comfortably atop his own coffin.

Brown's escort, now given the order to march, gave his team of white horses the same order, to proceed. Assorted military companies went into formation as three companies of infantry were ordered to hold their regular files. Fifteen hundred troops had been amassed around the scaffold where Brown, in loose-fitting clothes, carpet slippers, and a hat, was to be hanged. One of Virginia Governor Wise's sons was there to watch the execution. A militiaman from Company F of Richmond, one John Wilkes Booth, held onto his musket, waiting. Virginia Military Institute cadets could be seen behind the scafold with the man they called Stonewall Jackson. It was noon.

This is a beautiful country, John Brown said. I never before had the pleasure of seeing it.

Brown dropped his hat to the floor. The hood was lowered. The rope was brought around his neck.

I can't see, gentlemen, Brown said. You must lead me.

The sheriff asked Brown if he wanted to hear some kind of private signal, just before the end.

It does not matter to me, Brown answered. I only want that everyone should not keep me waiting so long.

The hatchet flashed. The rope flew, then snapped to a halt, vibrating a moment. There was no other sound.

Throughout New England, bells pealed from white-steepled churches. The execution of Saint John the Just took place on the second of the month, Louisa May Alcott reported. There was a meeting at the hall, and all Concord was there. Emerson, Thoreau, Father, and Sanborn spoke, and all were full of reverence and admiration for the martyr.

On the day of John Brown's execution, Sanborn wrote, there came a beautiful, mild winter day, perfect for boating on our Concord River.