On the evening of December 1, 1859 within the confines of the Charles Town, Virginia jail (now in present day West Virginia which became a state in 1863), Mary Brown met with her husband, John Brown. It would be the last time Mrs. Brown would see her husband of 26 years alive.
The next day, the state of Virginia hanged Brown for “treason, advising and conspiring with slaves and others to rebel and murder in the first degree.” This sentence was due to Brown’s botched attempt in mid-October to capture the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry with a small party of armed men and distribute the captured weapons to slaves in the region.
Prior to the execution Brown wrote one final note to his wife. He closed the ‘Farewell,‘ with these words, “Be of good cheer,” and God Almighty bless, save, comfort, guide, and keep you to “the end.”
On the gallows Brown proclaimed his closing words, “I die alone responsible for my own operations, and ask no sympathy. At 11:15 a.m. Sheriff James Campbell released the trapdoor and Brown’s body plunged downward. According to a witness, death was quick. Eyewitness David Hunter Strother remembered, “Thus died John Brown, the strange stern old man, hard and uncouth in character as he was in personal appearance, undemonstrative and emotionless as an Indian.”
Authorities turned over Brown’s body in Harpers Ferry to Mary Brown and her companions, Boston abolitionist/orator Wendell Phillips and James Miller McKim, a Philadelphia anti-slavery advocate and the party traveled by train arriving in Troy, NY on December 5. They continued north to Eagle Bridge, NY where they transferred to the Rutland & Washington Railroad for their evening destination of Rutland, VT. The train pulled into the depot late in the night. Mary Brown and her companions crossed Merchant’s Row in Rutland stayed in the Bardwell House, a three-story hotel constructed in 1852. Workers carried Brown’s coffin into the brick depot. Observers noticed the outer pine box that contained the walnut coffin had suffered damage along the route. However, it wasn’t due to poor handling, but some mutilation being “considerably cut and hacked by persons who had taken chips from it as mementos.”
After a short night’s sleep, Brown’s party and coffin departed Rutland at 5 a.m. with the destination being Vergennes, VT. Word of Brown’s layover didn’t spread until later in that morning. Reaching Vergennes in the mid-morning, the coffin was loaded onto a two-horse sleigh for it had snowed 6-8 inches two days earlier and the rest of the party mounted another sleigh. Bells toiled and mourners followed the sleigh as it travelled through town in route to Adams Ferry on Panton’s Arnold Bay six miles distant. Ferry owner Daniel Adams navigated his sail ferry through strong winds and a sleet storm before arriving at Westport’s Barber Point. Sleighs and drivers greeted the party for the next segment of their journey.
Heading towards Westport the teacher and her students in the stone schoolhouse adjacent to the road came out of the building and watched the cortege pass. The solemnity of the scene had a lasting effect on the children. By the time the laden sleigh reached the town, the sleet had turned to rain forcing a switch in transportation to wagons for the next segment of the journey. They followed the Northwest Bay Road to the Essex County seat of Elizabethtown. There, the party stopped for the night after a long day that had started in Rutland, crossed Lake Champlain and continued to Elizabethtown.
Brown’s body was carried to the Essex County Courthouse where four local men guarded it overnight. Three of those four young men later served in the Civil War. Mrs. Brown, Phillips and McKim took rooms in Adams Mansion House (now the Deer’s Head Inn) directly across the road. The same Adams (Elisha A.) who owned the hotel also served as Essex County Sheriff. He decided that Brown’s body would be placed in the County Courthouse. After the coffin was secured a number of mourners visited the hotel to pay their respects to Mrs. Brown.
The party got underway at daylight the next day, travelling over deep muddy roads from Elizabethtown to Keene and eventually the Brown Farm in North Elba by six p.m. They covered twenty-two miles and were greeted by family and friends in the December darkness.
The next day the funeral began at one p.m. and lasted nearly two hours. The Reverend Joshua Young, a Unitarian minister from Burlington, Vermont, presided. A hymn, “Blow ye the trumpet, blow,” one of Brown’s favorites, opened up the funeral followed by an “impressive” prayer by Young and addresses by James McKim and Wendell Phillips. Following one more hymn, the casket was brought outside, placed on a table in front of the doorway and opened. The numerous attendees had the opportunity to look down on the face of John Brown one more time. Then six pallbearers carried the casket over to a large boulder where, according to Brown’s wishes, "When I die, bury me by the big rock where I love to sit and read the word of God."
As the casket was lowered into the ground Young stated these words, "I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith."
With the burial completed, the St. Lawrence Republican and Ogdensburgh Weekly Journal summed it up quite eloquently: “The crowd slowly and reluctantly left the ground, and he rests in the ground among the hills.”
Brown funeral image – West Virginia History & Archives
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