Resident wants to bring to light the untold story of abolitionist John Brown in Richfield

by Sheldon Ocker

Jim Fry lives in the 19th century ­– ­the mid-19th century – but his passion is saving the past so we can better deal with present and look forward to a more productive future.

If that sounds pretentious, you have to know Fry. And lots of people in Richfield do. He lives on 11 acres of what was a larger family farm, on which he has assembled a museum of 40 buildings dating to the mid-to-early 1800s, all of them significant to the evolution of Northeast Ohio.

Fry is encircled by history; he lives in a 150-year-old house surrounded by furnishings and artifacts of the same vintage.

All of this is important in understanding Fry’s fascination with John Brown, the abolitionist who lived in Akron and was responsible for the infamous (or heroic, depending on one’s viewpoint) events at Pottawatomie, Kan., and the raid on a federal armory at Harper’s Ferry, Va. (West Virginia today), that led to Brown being hanged as the first person in America convicted of treason.

So was Brown merely a bad guy, or was he crazy? That’s what many people think. But consider this: Brown raided Harper’s Ferry to obtain weapons to fight slavery. His assault in Pottawatomie was induced by slavers trying to keep Kansas from becoming a free state by intimidating its citizens.

“What I’m doing is putting John Brown in context,” Fry said. “It goes back to who is John Brown: abolitionist or terrorist? If you put him in the context of his time, he was the most rational man in America.”

Fry is most concerned about the few years Brown lived in Richfield, a three-plus year slice of his life about which little is known.

“What he did here was really important, and nobody’s written about it,” Fry said, referring to Brown’s suspected activities in the Underground Railroad that historians say assisted in the escape of 100,000 slaves, 40,000 through Ohio.

Little has been documented about the Underground Railroad, because it was dangerous to have anything to do with it. Federal and state laws forbade people from helping runaway slaves under penalty of fines and prison.

“And the slavers could beat you down if you got in the way,” Fry said. “And if they killed you, so what? They were allowed.”

So being an abolitionist was a dangerous pastime. And Brown might have been the most famous abolitionist of all. Fry has the front page of a newspaper, the New York Herald, whose entire first page on Dec. 12, 1859, was devoted to Brown’s death.

According to Fry, the essence of Brown’s activities to free slaves is in Richfield. Brown came to Richfield from Hudson because his boyhood friend Mason Oviatt lived there and could get him a job learning the sheep business (Fry said Brown was one of the world’s foremost authorities on wool).

“In 1836, Brown stood up in church in Hudson and said, ‘I’m an abolitionist,’” Fry said.

Only one story seems to have survived to demonstrate Brown’s connection to the Underground Railroad in Richfield, where several of its residents are believed to have used their homes to hide slaves before they were transported to freedom.

Oviatt’s granddaughter Jennie told a tale of Oviatt driving a specially fitted wagon to Brown’s house in the dead of night. Five slaves emerged from that dwelling and squeezed into the bottom of the wagon, which Oviatt drove to Oberlin, from where the passengers were transported to Canada.

Oviatt’s house is still standing at his farm, now the Richfield Heritage Preserve. The building where the slaves were hiding, John Brown’s house, is the former Benedict’s Antiques on Route 303.

Fry is intensely interested in saving these two structures, but there are problems.

“That’s an extremely touchy subject; you’re not going to win either way,” said Bob Becker, board member of the Richfield Joint Recreation District, which oversees the Richfield Heritage Preserve, and thus the Oviatt House.

According to Becker, beetles have bored through the wood structure, “and there’s no cost-effective way to get rid of them, and the walls of the house are filled with mold.”

Becker said the roof offers no protection and is covered by a tarp.

“Realistically, the house is not worth saving,” he said, “even though it has great historical significance.”

Becker agreed that there are valued items in the house that can be saved, and that it would be feasible to construct some type of memorial, maybe a visitors center, and create a space for artifacts that are salvageable.

He guessed that full restoration of the house would cost $500,000.

Benedict’s Antiques has been out of business for some time. According to a real estate website, the house in which Brown lived is listed for $295,000, reduced from $325,000. It has been on the market for almost 10 months.

“They should save the Oviatt House; it was John Brown’s best friend’s house,” Fry said. “I hope to God they decide to save it.”

Fry is hoping the Cuyahoga Valley National Park is willing to buy Benedict’s; he said he wants to contact the park superintendent.

“There is nothing that belonged to John Brown in Benedict’s,” Fry said. “But the door handles are there that he put his hands on, the cellar door is where the slaves came out of. You could return Benedict’s to the exact look of what it was when John Brown lived there.”

Fry has a three-pronged plan to give Brown the importance he deserves in Richfield.

“Find the Richfield story,” he said. “Get all the bits and pieces and put them on the website [johnbrownohio.com]. I would like for Richfield, or someone, to apply for byway status again. … Call it the John Brown Freedom Trail Byway, and save the Oviatt House and Benedict’s Antiques.”

Fry sees his campaign as a way to recognize the principled and heroic actions of the ancestors of many current Richfield citizens, as well as a way to shine a light on Brown’s connections to the area and establish his rightful reputation.

“You know what?” Fry said. “One hundred sixty years ago, there were these white Protestant farmers in Richfield who had no dog in this hunt, who had no interest in what was going on someplace else, but who put their lives on the line to say, ‘We believe in freedom, we believe in liberty, and we will do whatever it takes to get that for our fellow human beings.’

“It’s a remarkable thing we did. So are we going to save that history? Let’s make a decision.”

Featured image photo caption: In recognition of Black History Month, the Richfield Times helps local historian Jim Fry tell how the early Richfield community, including resident John Brown, were leaders in the abolitionist movement. Photo by S. Ocker