The Last Moments of John Brown
Thomas Hovenden American, born Ireland
In 1859 John Brown, the controversial abolitionist, led a raid on a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), intending to arm enslaved Black Americans. Brown believed that the end of slavery in America was only possible through bloodshed. Captured and convicted of treason, Brown was sentenced to die by hanging. His hasty trial electrified the nation, and a sensational newspaper account reported how he paused on his way to the scaffold to kiss a baby. Two decades later, Hovenden, also an abolitionist, painted this sympathetic work at the request of a patron.
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