On December 2, 1859, John Brown was hanged at Charles Town, Virginia. Extraordinary precautions were taken so that no stranger be allowed in the city and no citizen within the enclosure surrounding the scaffold. In many Northern towns and cities meetings were held and church bells were tolled. Such was not the case in Rhode Island. The only public demonstration in honor of John Brown was held at Pratt's Hall in Providence, on the day of his execution.

Despite the opposition of the city newspapers, the Pratt Hall meeting ``brought together a very respectable audience, composed in part of those who had been distinguished for years for their radical views upon the subject of slavery, of many of our colored citizens, and of those who were attracted to the place by the novelty of such a gathering.'' Seated on the platform were Amos C. Barstow, ex-mayor of Providence and a wealthy Republican stove manufacturer; Thomas Davis, an uncompromising Garrisonian; the Reverend Augustus Woodbury, a Unitarian minister; the Reverend George T. Day, a Free-Will Baptist; Daniel w. Vaughan, and William H. H. Clements. The latter two were appointed secretaries. The first speaker was Amos C. Barstow who had been unanimously chosen president of the meeting. He spoke of his desire to promote the abolition of slavery by peaceable means and he compared John Brown of Harper's Ferry to the John Brown of Rhode Island's colonial period. Barstow concluded that as Rhode Island's John Brown became a canonized hero, if not a saint, so would it be with John Brown of Harper's Ferry.