Yankee Activist Supports Terrorism and a Blind Boy in Easton

Henry McArdle and several other Irish immigrants came to Easton in the late 1830s and lived in the new Ames Boarding House. He worked at the shovel shops into his seventies and his efforts gave him enough money to buy four houses and bonds in his boss' Union Pacific Railroad. In 1846 his son Henry Junior was born and shortly after 1850 the family moved into their new home at 50 Pond Street, only the second single family residence on that street.

An arrow struck and blinded little Henry when he was nine years old and here our story takes a turn. Luckily for the McArdles, Boston was home for what is now the Perkins School for the Blind, the most progressive institution in the world for educating blind children in the mid-nineteenth century. The name of the school comes from philanthropist Thomas Handasyd Perkins who donated his mansion in South Boston for the site of the original school. Perkins made his money owning ships that brought slaves from Africa and opium to China. The director of the new school was Samuel Gridley Howe who believed that handicapped people should be fully integrated into society, a radical idea at a time when many were often hidden away by their families.

Howe realized that a blind child could learn to play instruments and to sing so musical groups from the school toured the country in the 1830s and 1840s. People were amazed and the school's reputation grew. Little Henry would learn the complex trade of piano tuning during his seven years at the school.

Howe was full of reforming zeal and was an active supporter of abolition, somewhat ironically given his institution's origins. A year after Henry came to the school. Howe met a gentleman who was willing to do almost anything to free the slaves. That man was John Brown, and Howe became a strong financial backer of Brown's attacks on slave holders in Kansas. He and five other prominent Yankees became the secret supporters of Brown's attempt to start a slave revolt by arming them with weapons taken from a raid on the federal armory at Harper's Ferry, Virginia in 1859. Brown was either completely nuts or uncertain of his success. It seems that he believed that a full scale civil war might be needed to free the slaves and what better way to do that than convince the South that the North supported Brown. Thus, Brown left documents incriminating the "Secret Six" including Howe in his headquarters.

John Brown was hanged. Howe survived the ensuing scandal, and the Civil War began about 18 months later. A group of Easton men in the Twelfth Massachusetts Infantry began to train at Fort Warren. While there they made up a song about John Brown which they sang wherever the Twelfth Massachusetts regiment went. The song was a good soldier's song which talked about "John Brown's body" and "hanging Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree." A refined lady was appalled by the lyrics, but liked the tune and rewrote the song as "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." That lady was Julia Ward Howe, the wife of Samuel.

Some lose ends remain. Were the students at the school provided free education or did they have to pay? Could Henry McArdle afford to do this? How did he hear about this school and what made his son special enough to go there? Here's a tantalizing detail. The Secret Six had been radicalized by providing money for abolitionist settlers to go to Kansas and have it voted into the country as a free state. The Emigrant Aid Company was not quite the same thing as supporting a killer like Brown, but the group did provide guns for the settlers to protect themselves from slave owners. Who was another supporter of this group? Easton's very own Oakes Ames. Did Ames know Howe and speak up for the McArdle boy? It wouldn't be surprising to learn this given other stories about Oakes Ames.