Torrington celebrates John Brown’s legacy

TORRINGTON — To commemorate what would have been Torrington native John Brown’s 217th birthday, the Torrington Historical Society held a celebration of his life on Tuesday, May 9.

The event was held at the Carriage House Gallery, which is located in the society’s building at 192 Main St.

During the event, a proclamation was read by Mayor Elinor C. Carbone, and there were performances by the Rev. Sowatei Lomotey, pastor of the AME Zion Church, along with Kevin Johnson, who portrayed William Webb, a Civil War soldier from Hartford. 

The event also included a presentation with remarks from event co-organizer society Executive Director Mark McEachern. 

Mark Linehan of the Torrington Trails Network provided information about the organization and the public hiking trail that goes through John Brown’s family property. 

According to event co-organizer Conrad Sienkiewicz, John Brown and his family moved from Torrington to Hudson, Ohio. when he was 5 years old. When Brown was 8, his mother died during childbirth, having carried over a dozen children at 36 years old. 

“Brown suffered much of his life,” Sienkiewicz said. “He saw the early death of his siblings, his mother’s death, poverty, and he declared bankruptcy in 1842. In 1833, he buried four of his children. His son Frederick was killed in 1846 in Kansas, in 1859 his sons Watson and Oliver were killed in the raid of Harper’s Ferry. Of his 20 children, about half survived their childhood, and three as mentioned were killed in efforts to end slavery. So Brown had much to worry about in his lifetime, yet he chose to dedicate his life to freeing the slaves and to improving the lives of countless strangers, who often had no allies and no voices.”

In October 1859, Brown led a raid on a federal armory in Harper’s Ferry, W. Va., in order to initiate an armed slave revolt. 

“It has been acknowledged by historians that the raid was the spark that ignited the Civil War,” Sienkiewicz said. 

In 2013, the Trails Network partnered with the Historical Society to create a public walking path through the John Brown Birthplace on John Brown Road.

“Sometimes a trail can connect a community to its history,” said president of the Torrington Trails Network, Mark Linehan. Linehan said 60 volunteers and four Civil War re-enactors built a three-quarter-mile loop trail on the property in October 2013. 

“It’s a beautiful trail,” Linehan said. “There are stands of oak, a beautiful section of winterberry, hemlock and you even get to pass ‘Couch Rock,’ which is a rock that resembles a couch, on the trail.”

Linehan added that Trails Network would eventually like to expand the trails and work more with interpretation and signage in areas, such as the site where Brown’s family once ran a cannery. 

“History is often much more complicated and much more subtle than we often make it,” Linehan said. “John Brown understood that the heart and soul of this country was not the Constitution but the Declaration of Independence. Hopefully our trail will make that property more of a draw, more of an attraction for Torrington. So take a hike and picture little John Brown running up there, maybe himself sitting on Couch Rock, what he, born in Torrington, Connecticut and as a result, we, would become.”