The Beating of Henry Brown: A Runaway Elevator Boy and a Family's Violent Secret

According to the story of Henry Brown, a 14-year-old colored boy employed at the Rainier Hotel, the cruelty of his parents has driven him to the streets, and he is now hiding in mortal dread of experiencing another chastisement upon Saturday.

Young Brown's father is a blacksmith, who has a shop on Boston street, near the Western Mill, and his mother formerly took in washing. Both are serious members of the African M.E. church, on Jones street, near Madison, and according to the boy's story they evidently believe in the old adage that to spare the rod is to spoil the child.

The boy relates that up to a few weeks ago he was kept at home, and kept busy assisting his mother, his duties being to help her with the washing and to run errands from houses in town. He was dressed in rags, corresponding to his station as a swell gatherer and herder of chickens, and upon the slightest shadow of a misdeed, he says, he was subjected to a beating.

About three months ago Henry obtained a position as elevator boy at the hotel. His entire first month's wages were turned over to his mother. The next month he took it upon himself to fit out in new clothes, after the most approved patterns of the fashions of Coon Hollow—a neat coat, white vest and trousers, the whole forming a sumptuous outfit. These clothes, he says, at once got him into trouble. They cost the greater portion of his month's salary, and the sum to be placed in the brown palms of his expectant mother was not forthcoming. She sent for him, and what is said to have transpired at the house is better told in his own words:

'When I got home dat day she jest went for me, she did. She knocked me around de foots, she did, an' threw me down an' hammered me all over de head. Den she whacked me over de head, an' I pushed her away, I did, an' she quit. It was before dad come home, but she told him I sassed her an' beat her, an' he says he's goin' to wallop me. Den he got a rope 'bout an inch thick an' tied me hands an' feet an' threw me down on de floor. Den he took a big stick an' hit me all over my back an' arms an' legs, an' he hit me on de left ear, an' I can't hear out'n it yet, I can't. When he got tired of dat he took de rope an' tied me up by de rope an' jammed me down hard as he can on de floor, he did.'

'What did you do?' was asked.

'I jest hollered, but it didn't do no good. When he got through he untied de rope, an' de next chance I get I runned away and come here, I did.'

While telling the story the boy exhibited a wound on his wrist, which he said had been made by a club.

A number of persons in speaking of the effect of the beating say the punishment was so severe that when the boy showed himself down in town later one of his arms was frightfully bruised, and his back was completely covered with lumps and ugly wounds. When he undertook to remove his clothing the shirt, saturated with blood, was found glued to the broken and abraded skin.

The frightful chastisement appeared to have terrorized the boy and he declared he would never go home again.

'What will you do?' asked a friend, who had become interested.

'I doan know, I don't. I'd clean out of the country, I would, and go to Ballard, but I ain't got no money, I ain't—not enough to pay my fare,' was the mournful response.

The boy was taken in charge by his old friends at the Rainier, and he is now hiding there. His parents have made repeated efforts to discover him, but their every inquiry is met invariably with a shake of the head, and the response, 'Henry has just stepped out.'

The boy claims he called the attention of the prosecuting attorney to his parents' cruel treatment before his last licking, but that the 'judge,' as he called him, only wrote to his parents telling them that the boy must not be molested. Primarily on account of this, Henry says, he was given the whipping narrated above.

But there are two sides to every story, and the mother of the boy was quite willing to talk when seen at her home yesterday. She gave a detailed account of their movements since coming to this place from Los Angeles three years ago, and said that Henry had always been a good boy until he took it into his head a short time ago that he wanted to leave home and earn some money. She has an adopted son, Walter, in the mines at Newcastle, and did not want Henry to go away.

'What would your poor old mammy do, all alone?' she asked. He pleaded with her, and she said she was afraid he would become a bad boy if let loose at so early an age. Thereupon he promised to be good, and to come home three nights a week. He was to get $5 a month. At first all went well. The boy kept his promise, and appeared to be steady, and she rejoiced to know that he was doing well. But after a while Henry neglected to come home, sometimes staying away a whole week. She took him to task about it, and he explained that his work was so hard he could not possibly get away. At last the day after Henry had been absent from home for several days she was thunderstruck to learn from a friend that Henry had been seen frequenting barrooms in the lower part of the city. She made immediate inquiry as to what he had been doing at the hotel and learned, to her amazement, that he did not work more than half the time and constantly begged to be given shorter hours; furthermore, that his salary amounted only to $7 a month.

Mrs. Brown did not know what to do. She took the boy back home with her, and talked kindly to him and said she did not want a boy of hers to go wrong. He had never whipped her, she said, and always had been tractable. Now he was different and stubborn. Shortly after this she detected him in an attempt to run away from home, and after a close chase brought him back again. One day she took him into a beet patch near the house and set him to work. While there she spoke to him in about these words:

'Oh, Henry, you're breaking your poor mother's heart. Why don't you be a good boy?'

He did not like the way she spoke, and she saw he was malignant.

'You'd better behave,' she said. 'You are not worth cents. You went into that horrid house, and done disgrace, you did.'

At this Henry swore at her, something she never knew him to do before, and she promptly cuffed his ears. He sprang at her like a panther, knocked her down with a broom handle, jumped upon her chest and beat her about the head, neck and heart with his fists until she was almost unconscious. The boy at last ceased his brutal treatment of his mother and ran away, but not until she had been beaten black and blue.

Mrs. Brown, in relating how this took place, rubbed her long arms in a way that was tragic. She said:

'Yes, it was a blessing the boy ran away, for if I had been angry I might have killed him.'

When the father returned and heard the story he tied the boy's hands behind him and whipped him severely. 'He just got a taste of the lash, he's black and blue,' said Mrs. Brown, 'and the boy deserved it, too.'

There is no doubt the boy was badly whipped, perhaps brutally; but there is too much neighborhood talk that he deserved all he got. Mrs. Brown says the prosecuting attorney told her to take the boy home and keep him there.

The Browns live in a place that bears every mark of thrift. They have two rooms and a comfortable basement, and every square inch of soil is planted with vegetables.

'We ain't got no money, but we have plenty to eat,' said Mrs. Brown yesterday, 'and that boy got no sense for running away.'

And her words seemed to be true.

There was some talk among the indignant friends of the boy of having the case brought to the attention of the authorities, but whether anything will be done cannot be said. The colored couple want their son, and they intend that when he is at home he shall behave himself.