Creation of a Martyr

— Prelude to War —

This is where seven men were hanged in December 1859 and March 1860 for their part in John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry. The scaffold stood here in a large field.

A month after the trial, on December 2, 1859, John Brown was the first to die. He rode here in a wagon, sitting on his casket, with his arms tied. His last message, which he gave to a jail guard, read: "I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land: will never be purged away; but with Blood. I had as I now think: vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed; it might be done."

Eight hundred militiamen under Col. John T. Gibson stood guard to prevent any attempt to free Brown. Brown's body was returned to his wife in Harpers Ferry and taken home to North Elba, New York, for burial. Many Northerners regarded him as a martyr.

Among those present at Brown's execution were Thomas J. (later "Stonewall") Jackson, then an instructor at Virginia Military Institute, John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, and Edmund Ruffin, who fired one of the first shots of the Civil War at Fort Sumter.

On December 16, white raiders John Cook and Edwin Coppic and black raiders Shields Green and John Copeland were hanged here. Raiders Aaron Stevens and Albert Hazlett followed on March 16.

In 1892, Gibson, the militia commander, built the Victorian house that stands here today.

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Show me all markers in:  Charles Town, WV  |  Jefferson County  |  25414  |  West Virginia  |  United States of America

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