On November 1, 1859, Henry Thoreau delivered a speech in Boston that sparked the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator to comment that John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia "seems to have awakened the hermit of Concord."Delivered at Tremont Temple, Thoreau's speech praised Brown's character in the aftermath of his attempt to incite an armed slave revolt in Harpers Ferry. Thoreau described Brown as "an old-fashioned man in respect for the Constitution," "a man of great common sense," even "an angel of light."
Thoreau is portrayed by historian Richard Smith.