George Luther Stearns, a merchant of Boston, resident in the town of Medford close by,—a man of wealth and character and fine spirit,—was the mainspring of John Brown's campaign in Kansas and afterward in Virginia, though he seldom knew, and never took pains to find out, exactly what Brown was doing with his money. There were at work in New England, with their direction centred in Boston, two committees which had much to do with making Kansas a free State,—the Kansas committee of Massachusetts and the New England Emigrant Aid Company. Nominally, their chief work was to colonize men in Kansas who could be depended on to vote against slavery. Towns were established there, and their settlers furnished with arms by these and other Kansas committees. Influential in the work were Mr. Stearns, Dr.
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V.
