Important Players in a Divided Nation

Abolitionists in New York State during the 19th century played an important role in helping turn the tide against slavery. This map depicts paths escaped persons took to reach free states and even Canada. Public Domain

In the 19th century, several deeply religious families in Central New York State produced fathers and sons with strong abolitionist convictions. It was inevitable that their deeply held beliefs would spur them into action.

The Brown, Gould, and Cozzens families, originally from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island respectively, produced children with these same strong convictions in and around Utica, New York. Descendants of the Brown family grew to be 300 strong by 1862.

In his deeply researched book “The Abolitionist and the Spy,” author Ken Lizzio probes the impact that Orville Brown and his son Spencer Kellogg Brown had on the abolitionist movement and the Civil War. Similarly, George Gardner Smith published the laudable 380-page biography of Spencer Kellogg Brown in 1903, carefully gathered from Spencer’s daily journal and letters.

Spencer Kellogg Brown was an abolitionist who died for the cause during the War Between the States. Public Domain

Orville Brown’s great grandfather arrived in Litchfield, New York in 1792 and had 13 children. Orville’s mother was a Gould, and Orville married Mary Ann Cozzens of the prominent Providence, Rhode Island business family. The Brown and Cozzens families spread west, inspired by abolitionist sentiment.

Orville Chester Brown, the “abolitionist” in Mr. Lizzio’s work, and his son Spencer, barely past his teen years, was the “spy.” They were products of the religious fervor present in Litchfield, New York and the surrounding area. New York abolished slavery in 1827, spurring a movement of slaves from the south to New York, then north to Canada. The famous Underground Railroad, remnants of which are found in the small communities surrounding Utica, New York, exist today. Large homes dating back to the early 1800s have hidden rooms or tunnels. Both the Brown and Cozzens families later spread to the areas near Lake Ontario, where they helped escaped slaves flee to Canada.

Impassioned Drive for Change

Orville’s devotion to eliminate slavery grew as he attended the Oneida Institute in the Utica suburb of Whitesboro, New York. It was the first institute of higher learning to admit blacks and home to the first Anti-Slavery Society in New York state. It provided an opportunity for Orville to engage like-minded allies, but these passions during this period had dire consequences.

The Oneida Institute was a formative influence on Orville Chester Brown and others who held anti-slavery beliefs. Public Domain

Orville had ties to Gerrit Smith in Peterboro, New York, just 24 miles south of Utica. Gerrit’s father, Peter Smith, partnered with John Jacob Astor in the fur trade and land trading business. Gerrit inherited enough land to be called the largest individual landowner in New York state. He became a benefactor to Orville’s circle of friends in the movement: John Brown, Frederick Douglas, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Despite recurrent illness (probably rheumatism), Orville followed his days at the Oneida Institute by joining crews on cod fishing and whaling ships, operating a dry goods store, marrying Mary Ann Cozzens, and attending anti-slavery meetings. His first son, Spencer Kellogg Brown, would one day generate national discussion.

Moving the Family to the Kansas Territory

Spencer Kellogg Brown took up his father’s convictions. Born in 1842, he grew up while his father was an agent for the Underground Railroad, a sponsor of anti-slavery meetings, and an organizer of the movement to settle the Kansas Territory. Orville’s motive for migrating families to Kansas was to ensure that it would become an anti-slavery state.

The success of a movement to entice easterners to settle the territory enabled Orville to establish a settlement named Osawatomie, today a town in Kansas of fewer than 5,000. John Brown, a violent abolitionist, and his five sons lived nearby. Before long, during the battle of Osawatomie, the entire settlement was burned by pro-slavery forces and one of John Brown’s sons was killed.

Orville came close to being killed by armed Missourians desiring another slave state. Orville became a friend of John Brown and his brutal band of abolitionists. In the “bloody Kansas” contagion, 55 people died in the raids between eastern settlers and pro-slavery southerners. Orville’s house was burned and he sent his family back to Utica, New York.

Utica, N.Y.'s rich history in abolition and anti-slavery sentiment began in the 1800s, when New Englanders searching for land and liberty moved to the region. This contemporary view of downtown Utica showcases historic and modern buildings. Andre Carrotflower/CC BY-SA 4.0

Spencer Kellogg Brown Becomes Spencer Kellogg

Young Spencer was captured by a band of pro-slavery Missourians but was released when he convinced his captors that he was not John Brown’s son. Spencer quickly dropped the Brown surname. He returned to his family in Utica where his grandfather Levi Cozzens was a prominent attorney. Throughout the north, many of his peers joined the “Wide Awakes,” a grassroots group of young men supporting Abraham Lincoln and a Republican party determined to end slavery.

Groups of "Wide Awake" Republicans were a Lincoln-supporting anti-slavery faction that grew in popularity before and during the Civil War. Public Domain

The return to Utica did not curb the family’s intense anti-slavery convictions. Both father and son led rallies in several Central New York counties. They delivered the free state message to 1,600 citizens at Levi’s Mechanic’s Hall, urging emigration from New England and New York to the Kansas and Nebraska Territories. The Browns set an example by returning to Kansas a year later. They found Osawatomie in the process of being rebuilt and for a second time, and Orville built his family a home again.

The return to the now free state of Kansas was surreal. A dystopian drought became so severe that they depended upon provisions shipped from back east. The soil turned to dust and all farming ceased. When a tornado destroyed their new home, the family once again returned to Utica.

Spencer Kellogg’s mental acuity was revealed at a young age and considered attending West Point. But war was imminent, and he joined the Union Army while in Missouri. After a year, the newly married man joined the Navy; he was assigned to a gunboat at St. Louis. In retrospect, returning to Utica with his family would have been a better decision, but his youthful alacrity helped him become a Union hero by infiltrating Confederate lines. He was initially caught but escaped. A subsequent capture occurred during a second covert venture as a spy.

Spencer Held as a Spy by the Confederates

Orville Brown and Levi Cozzens, father and grandfather of the 20-year-old captured soldier, along with Spencer’s uncles in the Cozzens family who were attorneys, frantically tried to save the young prisoner.  Spencer was held in a converted tobacco warehouse: Castle Thunder in Richmond, Virginia was a horrendous place used to house those considered treasonous to the Confederacy. Spencer’s charge of spying was an offense punishable by hanging, and another prisoner at Castle Thunder was shot for a similar charge. Spencer had already been held for months at various prisons.

Castle Thunder was a notorious tobacco barn-turned-prison in Richmond, Va. The Confederates used it to interrogate, imprison, and torture political prisoners and spies during the Civil War. Public Domain

Levi Cozzens was well-connected politically and sought out Roscoe Conkling, a fellow Utican and U.S. Senator from New York. To prevent a hanging, they requested help from Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and ranking military figures familiar with Spencer’s case.

On Sept. 21, 1863, Spencer was sentenced to be hanged. Orville and Levi left Utica for Washington, arriving at the office of Henry Halleck, General-in-Chief of the Union Army. In response to the pair’s request for assistance, the general was explicit: “Mr. Brown, your son is safe and we will do all we can to protect him.” With that word and little chance that President Lincoln would intercede, the pair returned to Utica where a cousin, William Cozzens, read a published report that Spencer had been hanged on the very day they were in Washington. They were in Washington on Sept. 25, 1863, and the hanging had taken place in Richmond, Virginia at 11 a.m. Spencer went to the gallows and would never see the child his young wife would bear.

Levi Cozzens, a successful local leader and abolitionist was now 76 and devastated by grief. His grandson had not been saved by the Union. Unfortunately, his final years were followed by further sorrow. Levi’s eldest son, Henry, a graduate of the Hamilton College Class of 1837, became an attorney. He joined the Union forces when war broke out, along with two of his sons. Henry was commissioned as first lieutenant and reported to the siege of Port Hudson, which gave the Union control of the Mississippi River. While waiting for a government steamer to return to New Orleans, he became ill with congestion of the lungs. After a week’s illness, he died on Feb. 28, 1864. This was just six months after his nephew had been hanged.

In September of 1862, Levi and Henry placed the body of Henry’s eldest son, 21-year-old Marvin, in the large vault built by Levi in Utica’s Forest Hill cemetery. Marvin had been killed in the second battle of Bull Run. His brother Henry Jr. was in the same battle and lost a foot due to an amputation. Henry’s third son, John, was only 16 when his brothers enlisted. The end of this story is best told as printed in the Nov. 8, 1864 edition of the Utica Weekly Herald.

“DEATH OF CORP. JOHN S. COZZENS

“We have to record the death of Corporal John S. Cozzens, of the 21st New York Battery, making the third of the patriotic Cozzens’ family who have fallen victims to the rebellion, besides one whom it has rendered a cripple for life. He has written the following letter to his grandfather, Levi Cozzens, Esq., of this city:

“Johnnie is no more. He has also, like Marvin, Father, Spencer, and thousands of others, given up his young life to his country; gone to that land “that has no storms, no wars, no battles, no prisons, poor boy.”

“‘He died for his country, tis noble thus to die.’

“I shall never forget his manly beaming face as on the 29th of April, 1861, he shook Marvin and I by the hand, and with a tear in his eye said, “Boys, if this war lasts two years, I'll come and help you fight it out.” He was but sixteen then and we were on our way to the front. He little thought that that would be the last time and those the last words he would ever speak to him who but proceeded him to his grave. Two years came round and found Johnnie eighteen years of age, and a Corporal in the Army of the Gulf. On the anniversary of Laura’s birth he was taken prisoner, 28th of February, and on the 29th of June, the anniversary of my birth, he died a prisoner of war and took his departure to “that borne from whence no traveler returns.”

Levi Cozzens Esq. died at the age of 86 in 1873, nearly eight years after the Civil War. Through battle or disease, the war took 750,000 lives. In the final decade of his life, his son and three grandsons gave their lives in the fight to finally uphold the Oneida Institute’s abolitionist teachings.

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