Lewis Sheridan Leary
Lewis Sheridan Leary | |
---|---|
Oberlin-Wellington Rescue Raid on Harpers Ferry | |
Spouse | Mary Sampson Patterson Leary Langston (married 1858-59) |
Children | Louisa |
Lewis Sheridan Leary (March 17, 1835 – October 20, 1859) was an African-American harnessmaker from
Life
Leary's father was a
In 1857, Lewis Leary moved to Oberlin. There he married
In 1858, Leary participated in the
Leary may have been the first recruit from Oberlin to join Brown's army. He left Mary and their six-month-old daughter Lois at home. Accompanied by
In 1869 the widow Mary Patterson Leary married again, to the Ohio abolitionist Charles Henry Langston. The family moved to Lawrence, Kansas, where they remained for the rest of their lives. In 1872 Charles and Mary's daughter Caroline Mercer Langston was born. She would become the mother of the renowned poet Langston Hughes.[3]
Death
During the Harpers Ferry raid, Leary was mortally wounded. He survived his terrible wounds for eight hours after the capture of Brown's men, during which he was well treated and able to send messages to his family. His wife had not previously known of the planned raid. He is reported as saying, "I am ready to die." His body was first buried with 7 others killed in a pit along the Shenandoah (see John Brown's raiders). In 1899 his body was reburied with most of the others killed next to John Brown's grave, at the John Brown Farm State Historic Site in North Elba, New York.[4]
Legacy and honors
A memorial service was held in Oberlin for Leary,
In 1865 after the Civil War, a monument was erected in Westwood Cemetery at Oberlin to honor the three. The monument was moved in 1977 to Martin Luther King Jr. Park on Vine Street.[5] The inscription reads:
These colored citizens of Oberlin, the heroic associates of the immortal John Brown, gave their lives for the slave. Et nunc servitudo etiam mortua est, laus deo (And now slavery is also dead, praise be to God).
S. Green died at Charleston, Va., Dec. 16, 1859, age 23 years.
J. A. Copeland died at Charleston, Va., Dec. 16, 1859, age 25 years.
L. S. Leary died at Harper's Ferry, Va., Oct 20, 1859, age 24 years.
See also
References
- ^ Oates, John Alexander. The story of Fayetteville and the Upper Cape Fear. Dowd Press, 1950. p714
- ^ Ohio Memory, Lewis Sheridan Leary[permanent dead link] accessed June 3, 2007.
- ^ Faith Berry, Langston Hughes, Before and Beyond Harlem, reprint – Citadel Press, 1992, pp. 1-2.
- ^ "The Conspirators Biographies". William Elsey Connelley, John Brown (Topeka: Crane & Company, 1900), 340-347; and Oswald Garrison Villard, John Brown 1800–1859: A Biography Fifty Years After (1910, reprint, Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1965), 678-687. 2008. Retrieved May 24, 2010.
- ^ "Monument to the Oberlinians Who Participated in John Brown's Raid On Harpers Ferry", accessed May 21, 2007