Aaron Dwight Stevens

Aaron Dwight Stevens, Abolitionist

from: http://www.99main.com/~chill/Articles/AStevenComplete.html

A Native of Lisbon, Connecticut by Tom Bosse Grew up in Norwich, CT.

2009 Lisbon, CT Historical Society

Aaron Dwight Stevens participated in the raid on Harpers Ferry with John Brown. Born in Lisbon on March 15, 1831, Stevens grew up in a strict Puritan household. His father was the choir director of the First Congregational Church in Norwich, elevating the prominence of the pacifistic family.

He’d long deserted Norwich as a teenager, a rebel with a quick temper and yearning to fight slavery. In “Bleeding Kansas,” Stevens would join forces with famed abolitionist John Brown, of Torrington, training an army of 22 men to free the slaves — and first storm a federal armory in Virginia (now West Virginia).

Stevens, convicted of conspiring with slaves to revolt, was hanged on March 16, 1860. Nearly 160 years after his death, a group of Norwich-area officials and residents are requesting he be posthumously pardoned. “Norwich has always been seen as the home of Benedict Arnold, but he was a traitor,” Tommy Coletti said of the Revolutionary War turncoat. “Here is a true American hero who is listed as a traitor also, but he wasn’t. He was doing work in the 1800s that you had continued in the 1900s with Martin Luther King.” The premise of the simple pardon is that the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments — passed after the Civil War — nullify Stevens’ slavery related crimes.

In 2016, Route 138 in Lisbon was designated the Aaron Dwight Stevens Memorial Highway. And in Norwich, Plummer would like to see a bronze statue of Stevens erected on the city green — if the pardon is successful.

Sources:

"Connecticut Births and Christenings, 1649-1906", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:4VPX-YLPZ : 7 January 2020), Aaron Stevens in entry for Aaron Dwight Stevens, 1831.

https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-news-norwich-pardon-abo...

"A Journey to the Gallows" Tommy Colletti & Vic Butsch