Secret Six

TL;DR -- History will be a regular topic as it relates to New England and families from that region, especially those with ties to the early times and Essex County. 

--

A recent discussion on Quora got us back to a topic from several years ago that dealt with the period prior to the Civil War. By then, a wide swath of the Interior had been explored, if not settled though this was only a fraction of the eventual spread. In terms of the Heads of Harvard, we go to the pre-war period and stopped to regroup. This theme is an important one and will be reappearing on the topic list for some time. 

The Great Emancipators
WSJ 02/15/2020

The discussion was about John Brown, which looked at his abolitionist work including his time in Kansas. We had looked at that while getting familiar with Col. Thomas W. Higginson (Higginson-380 on WikiTree). At the time of that post, we noted that he was related to Thomas Gardner of Salem. However, his Gardner grandmother was the 2nd wife of his grandfather (John Higginson, #10, pg 13). The Colonel came out to Kansas with some men (some with their families) from Maine who were to settle the area to be free state. He wrote of his trip out to the area and back. 

We were introduced to the Colonel through articles about him when he died that Dr. Frank published in The Massachusetts Magazine. One of the authors was Franklin B. Sanborn. Both Sanborn and Higginson were members of the Secret Six who were Massachusetts men who supported the work of John Brown. One of the Six was Samuel Gridley Howe who was the husband of Julia (Ward) Howe who wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic. 

The Civil War was less than 100 years after the Revolution whose 250th commemoration is coming up. It was not long ago that we saw the 150th of the start of the Civil War. One connection to look at would be the generational aspects such as we see with our study of the fifth generation bearing the brunt of the split with England. 

Remarks: Modified 03/07/2022

03/07/2022 --