It is, of course, impossible for me to say when such idea and plan first entered his (John Brown's) mind and became a purpose; but I can say with certainty that he first informed his family that he entertained such purpose while we were yet living in Franklin, O. (now called Kent), and before he went to Virginia, in 1840, to survey the lands which had been donated by Arthur Tappan to Oberlin College; and this was certainly as early as 1839. The place and the circumstances where he first informed us of that purpose are as perfectly in my memory as any other event in my life. Father, mother, Jason, Owen and I were, late in the evening, seated around the fire in the open fire-place of the kitchen, in the old Haymaker house where we then lived; and there he first informed us of his determination to make war on slavery--not such war as Mr. Garrison informs us "was equally the purpose of the non-resistant abolitionists," but war by force and arms. He said that he had long entertained such a purpose--that he believed it his duty to devote his life, if need be, to this object, which he made us fully to understand. After spending considerable time in setting forth in most impressive language the hopeless condition of the slave, he asked who of us were willing to make common cause with him in doing all in our power to "break the jaws of the wicked and pluck the spoil out of his teeth," naming each of us in succession. Are you, Mary, John, Jason, and Owen? Receiving an affirmative answer from each, he kneeled in prayer, and all did the same. This posture in prayer impressed me greatly as it was the first time I had ever known him to assume it. After prayer he asked us to raise our right hands, and he then administered to us an oath, the exact terms of which I cannot recall, but in substance it bound us to secrecy and devotion to the purpose of fighting slavery by force and arms to the extent of our ability. Referring to this incident Mr. Villard says:[50] "It must be noted here that in this letter John Brown, Jr., gives the date of the oath as 1839; in his lengthy affidavit in the case of Gerrit Smith against the Chicago _Tribune_, he gave the date as 1836, three years earlier, and in an account given in Mr. Sanborn's book he placed it at 1837; three distinct times for the same event. It can, therefore, best be stated as occurring before 1840."