March 11

John Brown’s Raid; the Gay Connection
Harpers Ferry, WV

Mary Patterson Leary, the maternal grandmother of Afro-American gay poet Langston Hughes (1902-67) took in her young grandson to raise in her household when she was living in Lawrence, Kansas. She was one of the first women to attend Oberlin College in Ohio, and she instilled in young Langston a lasting sense of racial pride. What many do not know is that she was the widow of Lewis S. Leary, a member of John Brown’s army of abolitionists who raided Harpers Ferry, WV, in 1859, an event that precipitated the Civil War.

Harpers Ferry, at the junction of three states – Maryland, Virginia and WV – is known to every school child. Brown’s plan was to seize the federal arsenal, arm African-Americans for an uprising and rid the country of slavery. Among the men who joined in the raid was Lewis Leary, an African-American harness maker from Oberlin, Ohio. Brown and his followers holed up in the town fire house (see photo). Their plan seemed to work at first, and Brown’s men stormed the town and took captives. But then the U.S. military was called in, and the raid was squelched by the Marines, under the command of J.E.B. Stuart. Brown was executed, and Lewis Leary died of wounds he suffered during the raid.

Mary Patterson Leary went on to marry a second time, to abolitionist Charles Henry Langston, and our beloved poet, Langston Hughes, bears his name. He lived in her home in Kansas until his grandmother's death.