These letters show upon what terms of affection and religious sympathy John Brown lived with his pious father,—a man everywhere respected. Colonel Perkins, of Akron, Ohio, who was the capitalist partner of John Brown in the wool business, and lost money thereby, had no great respect for his partner's prudence, but said: "His father had more brains than John Brown, and was a more prudent man," He was long a trustee of Oberlin College, and it was through him that John Brown was sent to Virginia in 1840, to survey the wild lands there which belonged to that college. John Brown, Jr., says: "My grandfather, Owen Brown, of Hudson, had no son for whom he entertained more sincere regard than for his son John. I was myself for years almost as one of my grandfather's family, and had the best means of knowing." His aunt, John Brown's half-sister, Mrs. Marian Hand, of Wellington, Ohio, now living, confirms this statement. She also furnishes me with some facts concerning her brother Salmon, for whom his father had "great anxiety and fears" while he was studying law at Pittsburg in 1824, and who, he says, "was of some note as a gentleman, but I never knew that he gave evidence of being a Christian."
It seems that Salmon Brown, after beginning to practise law, travelled far and wide over the United States, and particularly in the South, where he finally took up his residence at New Orleans, and became the editor of a newspaper, "The Bee," which was published both in French and English, and seems to have opposed the administration of Andrew Jackson. His career as a journalist was from 1830 to 1833, and he died at Thibodauxville, or New Orleans, in the autumn of 1833. A letter from John Brown to his brother Frederick thus mentions Salmon's death, among other matters of smaller concern:—
Randolph, Penn., Oct. 26, 1833.
