Shields Green, colored, otherwise known as “Emperor,” was born a slave. After the death of his wife, he escaped on a sailing vessel from Charleston, South Carolina, leaving a little son in slavery. He eventually found his way to Rochester, New York, three years after his escape and after a sojourn in Canada. Here he became acquainted with Frederick Douglass, and though him with John Brown. And went on with Brown when Douglass turned back. Several reliable prisoners in the engine house testified to Shields Green’s cowardice during the fight.

Stewart Taylor, the only one of the raiders not of American birth, was but twenty-three when killed, having been born October 29, 1836 at Uxbridge, Canada. Of American descent, and a wagonmaker by trade, he went to Iowa in 1853, where in 1858 he became acquainted with John Brown through George B. Gill. He is described as being “heart and soul in the anti-slavery cause. An excellent debater and very fond of studying history. He stayed at home, in Canada, for the winter of 1858-59, and then went to Chicago, thence to Bloomington, Illinois, and thence to Harper’s Ferry.

Watson Brown, born at Franklin, Ohio, October 7, 1835, married Isabella M. Thompson in September, 1856, and died of his wounds at Harper’s Ferry on October 18, 1859. He was: “Tall and rather fair, with finely knit frame, athletic and active.” Of little education, he was a man of marked ability and sterling character, who bore well the family responsibilities which fell to him when all the other men of the clan went to Kansas. His son lived only to his fifth year; his widow later married her husband's cousin, Salmon Brown.

Owen Brown, born November 4, 1824, at Hudson, Ohio, was John Brown’s third son, and his stalwart, reliable lieutenant both in Kansas and at Harper’s Ferry. It was due largely to his unfaltering determination and great physical strength that the little group of survivors of which he was the leader reached safe havens. After the war he was for some time a grape-grower in Ohio, in association with two of his brothers.

Lewis Sheridan Leary, colored, left a wife and a six months old child at Oberlin, to go to Harper’s Ferry. The latter was subsequently educated by James Redpath and Wendell Phillips; the widow, now Mrs. Mary Leary Langston, is still a resident of Lawrence, Kansas.

Francis Jackson Meriam was born November 17, 1837, at Framingham, Massachusetts, and died suddenly November 28, 1865, in New York City, after having served in the army as a captain in the Third South Carolina Colored Infantry. Erratic and unbalanced, he was forever urging wild schemes upon his superiors, and often attempting them. In an engagement under Grant he was severely wounded in the leg. Early in the war he married Minerva Caldwell, of Galena, Illinois.

Osborn Perry Anderson, colored, survived the raid to die of consumption at Washington, D. C., December 13, 1872. Born July 27, 1830, at West Fallowfield, Pennsylvania, he was in his thirtieth year at the time of the raid, of which and o f his escape he left a record in ‘A Voice from Harper’s Ferry,’ which contains, however, many erroneous statements. He learned the printing trade in Canada, where he met John Brown in 1858. After his escape he returned to Canada.

William H. Leeman, born March 20, 1839, and killed on October 17, 1859, the youngest of the raiders, had early left home, being of a rather wild disposition. Owen Brown found him hard to control at Springdale. Mrs. Annie Brown Adams writes of him: “He was only a boy. He smoked a good deal and drank sometimes; but perhaps people would not think that so very wicked now. He was very handsome and very attractive.” Educated in the public schools of Saco and Hallowell, Maine, he worked in a shoe-factory in Haverhill, Massachusetts, at the age of fourteen.

Oliver Brown, the youngest son of John Brown to reach manhood, was born March 9, 1839, at Franklin, Ohio. He went to Kansas in 1855 with his father, returning to North Elba in October, 1856. For a time in 1857 he was at work in Connecticut. He married Martha E. Brewster, April 7, 1858, when but nineteen years old, and died at Harper’s Ferry, October 18, 1859, in his twenty-first year. His girl-wife and her baby died early in 1860. “Oliver developed rather slowly,” says Miss Sarah Brown.