208

836 HISTORICAL ANNOTATION

began as a Democrat but became a founding member of the Republican party because
of his opposition to slavery. In 1856 Selden successfully campaigned as a candidate
for the lieutenant-governorship. He served as an appointed judge on the state court of
appeals (1862-65) and then in the legislature. Selden was the defense attorney for
Susan B. Anthony when she was prosecuted for illegally voting in the 1872 election.
ACAB, 5:456-57.

242.5 B. J. Lossing] Benson John Lossing (1813-91), wood engraver, author,
editor, and historian, was born in Beekman, New York, to parents of Dutch descent.
Having received only three years of formal schooling because of his parents' deaths
while he was a boy, Lossing became a wood engraver for J. A. Adams, an illustrator.
In 1838 Lossing moved to New York City and edited and illustrated the weekly
Family Magazine. In 1848 Lossing began work on what would become his Pictorial
Field Book of the Revolution, an illustrated multivolume work that presented scenes
from the American Revolution. In his lifetime, Lossing authored more than forty
illustrated historical and biographical works. ACAB, 4:31; DAB, 11:421-22.

242.8-27 "[Confidential.]...HENRY A. WISE."| The correspondence between
Virginia Governor Henry A. Wise and President James Buchanan regarding the appre-hension of Douglass apparently has not survived. Several generations of biographers
of both John Brown and Douglass have relied upon the accuracy of the account of this
incident as presented in Life and Times. Villard, John Brown, 529, 650n; Oates, To
Purge This Land, 314, 408n; Reynolds, John Brown, 342; McFeely, Frederick
Douglass, 200-201.

242.17 Benjamin M. Morris] Benjamin M. Morris (1819-?) was born in New
Kent County, Virginia, in the town of Orchard Grove. He married Elizabeth W. Howle
in 1876. Trained as a carpenter and homebuilder. Morris joined the Richmond police
force in 1850 and served as constable until 1865. While a Richmond police officer,
Governor Henry A. Wise charged him with the capture of fugitives from the Harpers
Ferry insurrection. Although they never caught Douglass, Morris and his partner,
William N. Kelley, captured John Edwin Cook and Albert Hazlett in Pennsylvania. In
his later years, Morris was a trustee of the poor in Orchard Grove. 1880 U.S. Census,
Virginia, New Kent County, 362; H. H. Hardesty, Hardesty's Historical and
Geographical Encyclopedia...Wayne, Lincoln and Cabell Counties, West Virginia
(New York, 1884), n.p.

242.34-245.11 "CANADA WEST...FREDERICK DOUGLASS."| Douglass accurately
dates the open letter, which varies only slightly from the text published by various
newspapers. New York Herald, 4 November 1859; Montreal Daily Transcript, 5
November 1859; Lib., 11 November 1859.

242.36 Cook] Born in Haddam, Connecticut, John Edwin Cook (1830-59) stud-
ied for a time at Yale University and then worked as a law clerk in Brooklyn, New
York. By 1855 Cook had migrated to Kansas and was among the first to enlist in
Brown's plan to raid the South. Brown sent Cook ahead to he in Harpers Ferry for
more than a year prior to the raid. A genial and observant young man, Cook worked