Ohio History Journal

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EDWIN COPPOC.

 

BY C. B. GALBREATH.

 

Among many villages of our state that pursue the

even tenor of their way so peacefully and quietly that

they earn their way to honorable obscurity, is Winona,

Columbiana County. This name was chosen from

Longfellow's Hiawatha, for the citizens of this place

find time to read, enjoy what we dignify as "literature"

and are in a very useful and unpretentious way "cul-

tured." The church and the school are liberally patron-

ized. The moral standard of the community is high.

Through the bellum and ante-bellum days this village

was simply a crossroads, unnamed as yet, with little to

distinguish it from the surrounding country, which is

rolling, well watered and fertile. It was not christened

Winona until the year 1868.

Hither in pioneer days at the opening of the last cen-

tury came the Quakers, chiefly from North Carolina.

The admission of Ohio as a free state in 1803 made it

attractive to these people. They were uncompromis-

ingly opposed to slavery. They did not seek contro-

versies with slaveholding neighbors in the South, but

preferred to make their homes in a land dedicated to

universal liberty.

As a people they were frugal, industrious, honest, a

little inconsistent, strangers say, in their plain clothes

and plain language, but opposed with uncompromising

firmness to all forms of organized injustice, intolerance

and oppression. In the new state they found congenial

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398     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

environment, the opportunity to practice unmolested the

tenets of their simple faith and a form of government

that disturbed them little in the course of their unevent-

ful and peaceful lives.

The settlement about what afterward became Winona

was typically Quaker. Year in and year out these

people tilled the earth, sowed the seed and gathered the

harvests in. On First Day of each week they met for

silent worship. They bowed in silence before partaking

of their daily bread. They were a law unto themselves

and very seldom needed either the restraining or direct-

ing hand of government. This is about the last place

that we should expect to give birth to any one who

should startle the community or aid in startling the

world.

And yet on some subjects these people thought seri-

ously and profoundly. The slavery question was to them

one of absorbing interest. On it they read and medi-

tated. To many of them it was a source of education.

They became familiar with all the anti-slavery argu-

ments. To "remember those in bonds as bound with

them," was for them invested with all the force a direct

command from Mt. Sinai. Opposition to slavery grew

with the passing years and the appeals of Lundy and

Garrison found a fervid response in this farming com-

munity.

We have heard much of the "isolation of the rural

districts." This did not apply to the region of which

we write in the three decades before the Civil War, for

it was located in Columbiana County and only six miles

distant was the town of Salem, a center of anti-slavery

agitation, from which radiated the itineraries of the

agents of the Western Anti-Slavery Society.

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400     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

In this community, when the movement was in full

swing, the Coppoc brothers, Edwin and Barclay, were

born. Their grandfather John Coppock and his wife

moved to Mount Pleasant, then in the Northwestern

Territory, but one year later in the state of Ohio. In

the year following, 1803, he moved to what in 1806 be-

came Butler Township, Columbiana County, Ohio.

John Coppock was descended from Aaron Coppock,

of Cheshire, England, who was born August 19, 1662

and came to America in 1683. He was a minister of

the gospel forty-two years. His son John, born July 1,

1709, married Margaret Coulston. To them were born

five children. The youngest son, Samuel, born Novem-

ber 3, 1748, married Anne Stillwell. Their oldest son,

John, born November 4, 1776, married Catherine Kirk.

Their son, Samuel, married Anne Lynch. Of this union

six children were born, Levi, Maria, Edwin, Barclay,

Lydia and Joseph L. Levi and the two daughters died

before they reached the age of twenty-five years. Joseph

L. Coppoc saw very active service in the Civil War and

rose to the rank of major. He was for many years a

minister in the Baptist church. A number of children

survive him.1

The sons of Samuel Coppock spelled their family

name Coppoc, omitting the final k. A cousin explains

the change in spelling as follows: Levi, the oldest son

of the family, who died in his twenty-fourth year, was

an expert speller and inclined to favor simplified spell-

ing, which even at that early day had a few advocates.

He and his brothers and sisters omitted the k in spelling

the family name, but their father always retained it.

While there seems to have been no authority for chang-

ing the name from "Coppock" to "Coppoc," this latter

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Edwin Coppoc                401

spelling will be used in the names of those who had

adopted it. In other words, each person will be accepted

as authority on the spelling of his own name.

It will be seen that the Coppocks were of colonial

ancestry. They came from Pennsylvania to that part

of the Northwest Territory which afterward became

Ohio.

Edwin Coppoc, the third child of Samuel and

Anne (Lynch) Coppock, was born in Butler Township,

Columbiana County, Ohio, June 30, 1835. His brother

Barclay was born at the same place January 4, 1839.

Their father died when the boys were young. They

grew up under the influence of a devout mother, grand-

parents and other relatives. The father died early in

1842, leaving a wife and six children, ranging in ages

from one to ten years. In the spring of 1842, a few

months after the death of his father, Edwin was placed

with John Butler, a farmer of sterling character with

whom he remained for eight years. During this time

he attended school in the winter and performed the work

that usually fell to the lot of farmer boys in the neigh-

borhood.

The years from 1842 to 1850 were eventful. They

covered not only the brief period of the Mexican war

but the anti-slavery agitation which had been intensi-

fied by the results of that war, including a substantial

extension of slave territory, and the exciting debates in

Congress leading up to the enactment of the Fugitive

Slave Law. It is needless to say that discussion of the

burning question of the hour was carried on almost

without interruption in the Quaker communities of Ohio

and much that was said sank deep in the receptive minds

of the young. The talk in front of the ample fireplace,

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402      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

at the table, in the church and on the rostrum turned

upon the wrongs of those in bonds and the aggressions

of the slave power. To all this Edwin Coppoc was an

attentive and serious listener. His impressions were

lasting; what he heard had much to do with what he

became when he reached young manhood's estate.

At the age of fifteen years, somewhat to the regret

of Mr. Butler, young Coppoc went to Springdale, Iowa,

in what was then known as the far West, to join his

mother who had married a man by the name of Raley

and was re-establishing a home for her children. She

was a woman of native intelligence and strong convic-

tions. Already she had known the trials and vicissitudes

of life. She had lost the sight of one eye when she was

a child and the other was beginning to fail. Two daugh-

ters and a son were soon to follow their father to the

grave. As Edwin grew into sturdy young manhood she

looked to him as a source of comfort and support. He

was industrious, frugal and bade fair to become a suc-

cessful farmer in the new   western home.    In 1859,

Thomas Winn of Springdale, Iowa, wrote of him:

"He came to Iowa with his widowed mother some seven

or eight years ago and settled here. I have been well and in-

timately acquainted with him and the whole family during the

greater part of the time mentioned. For more than a year Edwin

was an inmate of my family, [I] having employed him as a hired

hand on a farm, in which capacity he discharged his duties most

faithfully, and I can truly say that by his uniform industry, cor-

rect habits and amiable deportment he gained the confidence and

esteem of every member of my family. His reputation has

always been good as an honest, truth-speaking, straightforward,

industrious person."2

In a similar vein, Charles Adams, of Philadelphia,

in December of the same year wrote of Edwin and his

mother in part as follows:

The numeral referances are to notes on pages 450-451.

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Edwin Coppoc                    403

 

"About three years since, I visited Iowa and was at his

mother's house in Springdale settlement: her sons were then at

home; Edwin was a farmer, owned a team of oxen and followed

breaking prairie. He was industrious and much respected, and

had the reputation of being thrifty and attending closely to his

business. He broke some prairie for me also, and from his man-

ner and appearance and his mother's representation of him as

a dutiful and attentive son, I took quite an interest in him. In

December last, I had business again in Iowa, and dined at his

mother's house. Edwin had been on a visit to some of his rela-

tives in Kansas and returned the day before -so that I dined

with him also: He then talked of renting a farm in the spring,

and I inferred that it was his intention to marry.

"The mother is a member of the Society of Friends,

[orthodox] and is largely and respectably connected in New

Jersey and Pennsylvania. She is an exemplary woman and has

been visited with many and grievous affictions, lost one eye in

her childhood and is now nearly blind. Of six children three

have died of consumption."²

Late in December, 1857, an event of unusual im-

portance occurred in the village of Springdale. It was

the arrival of John Brown and his party on their way

from Kansas to Canada preparatory to the attack on

Harper's Ferry. It had not been the intention of John

Brown to stop long at Springdale. He had expected to

press on to Ashtabula County, Ohio, as soon as he could

sell his teams and wagons and thus realize sufficient

money to proceed on the journey by rail. Times were

very hard, however, and he could not raise sufficient

money to proceed. While cash was scarce, food in this

Iowa village was abundant and he found that it would

be much cheaper to winter there than to continue east-

ward.

Besides he found the people of this community in

hearty accord with his anti-slavery views. Springdale

was settled by the Quakers, a number of them from

Ohio. An Iowa writer thus describes the early settlers:

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"Among the first residents were John H. Painter, a Quaker,

who came in 1849; and Anne Coppoc, a Quakeress, and Dr. H.

C. Gill who came in 1850. During the next few years many

came, almost all of them Quakers; so that when visited by Brown

and his band in 1857, it was a thriving Quaker settlement. Its

one street, which in fact is but a part of the public highway, is

bordered on either hand by modest frame houses surrounded

by spacious yards and shaded by overhanging branches of trees.

On all sides of the village the green and undulating fields stretch

away to the horizon. Within its homes the pleasant 'thee' and

'thy' of the Quaker are constantly heard; and there prevails an

air of peace and serenity which is inexpressibly soothing and

comforting."

It was not, of course, the natural beauty of the

place and surrounding country that especially appealed

to Brown and his followers but the friendly attitude of

the people who threw open their homes and bade the

storm beaten little expedition of anti-slavery warriors

a cordial welcome.

John Brown himself lived, while in Springdale, with

John H. Painter, a Quaker who became his staunch

friend. His men, however, were quartered in the home

of William Maxson about three miles distant from the

village.  Here they found a haven of rest and social

enjoyment that contrasted sharply with the excitement

and turmoil of the border warfare in Kansas. Maxson

was not a Quaker but an ardent abolitionist.

They had regular camp duties to perform under the

direction of Aaron D. Stevens, one of their number

who had served in the United States army and was an

ideal instructor in military tactics.  The men began

their daily work at five o'clock in the morning. Imme-

diately following breakfast they took up their studies

and continued until about ten o'clock.    Books were

then laid aside and the remainder of the forenoon was

devoted to drill in the school of the soldier. A portion

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Edwin Coppoc                405

of each afternoon was spent in gymnastics, sword drill

and company movements. This training was conducted

in an open space close to the Maxson home. There was

perhaps a double purpose in this. It was conveniently

located with reference to "winter quarters" and the

exhibition of arms, "carnal weapons", was not obtruded

upon the peace-loving Quakers of the village.

Of course these "conscientious objectors" to the use

of arms knew what was in progress at the drill grounds.

They also understood in a general way that Brown and

his followers believed that slavery must be overthrown

by force of arms, but their religious objections to war

were very materially modified by the thought that the

projected warfare was to be launched against the insti-

tution of slavery, which they considered the supreme

iniquity of the age. They were in full sympathy with

Brown in the object to be attained and while they did

not approve they were disposed to excuse the means

by which he sought to achieve the end. Had he and

his followers come on a mission to return fugitive

slaves to their masters, they would have found Spring-

dale at this time a most inhospitable abiding place.

With a community of views on the slavery question as

a basis, there were other considerations that aroused

in the people of this pioneer village additional interest

in their guests. Had not these young men and their

chieftain already achieved fame on the plains of

Kansas? These were the heroes of Black Jack and

Ossawatomie, who had opposed the border ruffians

from Missouri. Free State papers and the New York

Tribune had brought the news to the community. Be-

sides, the new comers by their social deportment and

their manifest interest in literary attainment most

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406      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

favorably impressed their Quaker friends, especially

those of about their own age. Kagi was a ready writer,

a skillful debater and an able speaker. Cook was of a

poetic temperament, fluent and impressive on the ros-

trum.   Richard Raelf had already written poetry of

genuine merit, was a born orator and a lecturer who

was heard with genuine pleasure. He had come from

England, had travelled much, was reputed to have been

the protege of Lady Byron and it was even hinted that

he was related to her husband, the famous poet. That

he was a youth with claim to native genius is attested by

the substantial volume of his poetry that was collected

and published after his death by his friend, Colonel

Richard J. Hinton. All the members of the little band

had had thrilling experiences on the border which fur-

nished interesting narratives for the long winter eve-

nings around the hospitable firesides.  In addition to

this all of the men, except John Brown himself, were

young and of attractive personality.

Brown's men found a pleasing diversion in organ-

izing and successfully conducting a literary or debating

society. Tuesday and Friday evenings of each week

were set aside for this purpose. A mock legislature was

organized which included not only their own number

but interested young men in the community who wished

to take part. Irving B. Richman thus describes the

work of this moot body:

"The sessions were held either in the large sitting room of

the Maxsons, or in the larger room of the district school building,

a mile and a half away. There were a speaker, a clerk of the

House, and regular standing committees. Bills were introduced,

referred, reported back. debated with intense earnestness and

no little ability, and finally brought to a vote. Kagi was the

keenest debater and Raelf and Cook orators of very considerable

powers.^"3

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Edwin Coppoc               407

It is scarcely necessary to state that from the day

of the arrival of these guests, Edwin and Barclay

Coppoc were sympathetic observers and listeners.

"They both took much interest in Brown, his men and

his cause, and at length enlisted under his leadership."

If these two boys and the good people of Springdale

were favorably impressed with John Brown and his men

in the winter of 1857-58 and shed tears when they took

their departure on April 27 of the latter year, it will be

readily understood that great interest was aroused by

the arrival, on February 25, 1859, of John Brown and

a part of his faithful band with the eleven negroes

whom he had liberated in his famous foray into Mis-

souri. Was this not a practical demonstration of the

efficacy of Brown's plans? Here were the men, women

and children that he had delivered from the land of

bondage, now well on their way to freedom under the

protecting folds of the British flag. The dusky charges

were distributed among the homes of Springdale and

here for a time they rested before starting on the final

stage of their journey to freedom. To the young men

of the village especially there was a strong appeal in this

spectacular exploit and its antecedent adventure.

But among the older citizens of Springdale misgiv-

ings began to find guarded expression. The news came

that the United States authorities were on the trail of

this band of liberators, that a large reward had been

offered for the capture of Brown.

The officers of the government might appear at any

time. The young men of the village, a number of them,

were ready to take up arms to prevent the return of the

slaves and the awful possibility loomed up of a pitched

and bloody battle in the streets of Springdale. The

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408      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

Quakers, of course, did not wish to witness this. They

were not yet ready for the results to which their agita-

tion and teachings were unintentionally but inevitably

leading.

Much to their relief the armed conflict did not occur

and John Brown with his dusky freedmen, on March 9,

left to take the train and continue their journey to

Canada. They went to West Liberty, from which sta-

tion Richman thus graphically describes their departure:

"Huddled together in a little group near the track, stand the

negroes, patient, wondering. Near them, leaning on their Sharp's

rifles, heavy revolvers in their belts, on the alert, stand Kagi and

Stephens. In a few minutes the freight car which has been got

with so much trouble, and by not a little prevarication as to the

use to which it is to be put, is pushed by a crowd of men down

the side-track to a point convenient for the loading. Brown

mounts into it and shakes the door and lays hold of the sides

that he may judge of its capacity for resistance in case of attack.

Clean straw is then brought to him which he spreads over the

floor. After this, the negro babes and small children, of whom

there are several, are handed up to him and he tenderly deposits

them among the straw. The older negroes are next helped in,

and all is ready. The passenger train on the Chicago and Rock

Island Road rolls in from the west. For a moment there is

suspense. Is the United States Marshal on board?  No! The

train draws out from the station, stops, backs down on the side-

track and is coupled to the freight car. Kagi and Stephens get

into one of the passenger coaches, and John Brown is leaving

Iowa for the last time."³

Many of the Quakers of Springdale heaved an

audible sigh of relief when Brown and the negroes de-

parted, but they followed him with ardent prayers for

the success of his enterprise and the hope that he might

reach Canada in safety and permanently liberate the

fugitives without "the snapping of a gun" or the shed-

ding of a drop of blood. It need not be added that there

was sincere rejoicing when the news finally came that

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Edwin Coppoc                  409

the long journey of Brown was successfully accom-

plished. Among those to whom this news was especially

gratifying were the Coppoc brothers, who had already

enlisted in the great adventure, the details of which

were rapidly taking shape in the secretive mind of their

visionary and indomitable leader.

After the final departure of Brown from Iowa,

Edwin and Barclay Coppoc remained for a time in

Springdale and then went to visit friends in the old

neighborhood near their birthplace south of Salem, Ohio.

This is attested by the letter of their uncle, Joshua Cop-

pock, to Governor Wise under date of November 24,

1859, in which he says:

"He [Edwin] lived with John Butler a number of years

until his mother went to Iowa where he remained the most of

the time until last spring. He came back and worked here for

some time and went from here to Kansas."²

Edwin Coppoc in his last letter to his uncle Joshua

also refers to this visit:

"Your generous hospitality towards me during my short

stay with you last spring is stamped indelibly upon my heart;

and also the generosity bestowed upon my poor brother."

Just what the motive of this visit was is not very

clear, but it was certainly fitting that the brothers should

visit again the scenes and kindred about their old home

before entering upon the enterprise that was to mean so

much of loss and gain to each of them.

Early in July, 1859, John Brown wrote a memoran-

dum for Kagi in which occurs the following direction:

"Write Carpenter [supposed to be Edwin Coppoc] and Haz-

lett that we are all right and ready as soon as we can get our

boarding house fixed; we will write them to come and by what

route."⁴

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On July 25 Barclay Coppoc is reported to have said

to his mother:

"We are going to start for Ohio today."

"Ohio," said his mother, "I believe you are going with old

Brown. When you get the halters round your necks will you

think of me?"

After they left Springdale little was heard of them

until the village was thrilled and the country was startled

with the news of the attack on Harper's Ferry.

The exact date of the arrival of the brothers at the

Kennedy Farm in Maryland, where John Brown's men

were assembling for the attack on Harper's Ferry, is

not definitely known. They were probably there before

the end of the first week in August, however, and did

not leave for excursions to any great distance before the

night of the attack. Brown's men did not all live at the

Kennedy Farm but it was the rendezvous of the band

and the Coppocs were among the regular boarders.

As early as July 19, Annie Brown, afterward Annie

Brown Adams, the daughter of John Brown, and

Martha, the wife of his son Oliver, came to take charge

of the housekeeping at the Kennedy Farm. Both were

young; the former only sixteen and the latter seventeen

years old. Years later Mrs. Adams gave interesting

accounts of life on the Farm from the date of their

arrival to September 19, when they left for their home

in North Elba, New York. Colonel Richard J. Hinton

in his John Brown and His Men, quotes one of her

accounts at length. In writing of the evenings on the

Farm she says:

"All questions on religion or any other subject were very

freely discussed by the men, and father always took an interested

part in the discussions, and encouraged every one to express his

opinion on any subject, no matter whether he agreed with him or

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Edwin Coppoc                   411

not. Stevens had a copy of Paine's 'Age of Reason' there; that

was read by some of the men and discussed. Father subscribed

for the Baltimore Sun, and Kagi used to send down a bundle of

papers and magazines from Chambersburg when the wagon went

up. They had a manual of military tactics that was studied a

good deal. Cook obtained directions for browning or coloring

rifle-barrels in the arsenal at Harper's Ferry, and the men spent

a part of the time in this work on their Sharp's rifle-barrels,

making belts, pistol holsters, etc. They also played checkers,

cards, and other games, and sang a deal of the time. Stevens

and Tidd were very fine singers, the former having an excellent

baritone. They often sang 'All the Old Folks Are Gone,' sub-

stituting 'All the Dear Ones' for the first words; 'Faded Flowers,'

and 'Nearer My God to Thee.' "4

The days of August slipped away. September came

and long before it waned the men of Brown's party

began to grow impatient at the delay. Each had to be

constantly on his guard to avoid suspicion which was

ever rife near the boundary between the free and the

slave states.  Efforts of slaves to escape from   their

masters in this region were not infrequent and the

agents of the Underground Railroad were increasingly

active.

The days of September were finally gone and time

moved on with leaden feet through the early days of

October. In the meantime commissions were issued to

a number of Brown's men, designating the rank of each

in the little army to be formed if the raid should prove

successful. Following is a copy of the one issued to

Edwin Coppoc:

No.                                                 10.

GREETING

HEAD-QUARTERS WAR-DEPARTMENT

NEAR HARPER'S FERRY, MD.

WHEREAS, EDWIN COPPOC has been nominated a Lieu-

tenant of Company in the Army Established under the PRO-

VISIONAL CONSTITUTION,

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NOW, THEREFORE, In pursuance of the authority

vested in Us by said Constitution, We do hereby Appoint and

Commission the said EDWIN COPPOC a Lieutenant.

Given at the office of the Secretary of War, this day, October

13, 1859.

JOHN BROWN, Commander-in-chief.

H. KAGY, Secretary of War.

At last on Sunday night, October 16, nineteen men

fully armed marched from the Kennedy Farm. Edwin

Coppoc was among the number.    Barclay remained

behind with Merriam and Owen Brown to guard arms

and stores.

Onward in silence under the shades of night the res-

olute little band marched into Harper's Ferry. In ac-

cordance with previous plans, carefully laid, Albert

Hazlett and Edwin Coppoc took charge of the United

States armory as soon as the guards there were over-

powered and made prisoners. Long before dawn of the

next day Harper's Ferry, the United States arsenal, the

rifle works, the engine house and the approaches to the

town were in the hands of the invaders. As the startled

inhabitants awoke they realized that they were captives

in the hands of an unknown military force. The story

of the fighting that followed on those memorable days,

October 17 and 18, between Brown and his followers

and the Virginia militia and the United States marines

under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Robert E.

Lee, now in a uniform of blue but later in a uniform of

gray and commander-in-chief of the Confederate

army, has been told often in graphic detail and need

not here be dwelt upon at length. On the day following

the attack Edwin Coppoc was driven under fire from the

armory into the engine house where John Brown made

his last stand, fighting the infuriated Virginians and

• 17
 

Edwin Coppoc                   413

the marines as they battered in the doors behind which

he and the remnant of his followers were beaten down

and captured. Strange to say, Edwin was not even

wounded.

Jesse W. Graham, a workman in the United States

armory and a captive of John Brown, related this inter-

esting incident of the siege of the engine house, after

the arrival of the marines under Lieutenant Colonel

Robert E. Lee:

"Early on Tuesday morning I peeped out of a hole and saw

Colonel Lee, whom I had seen before at the Ferry, standing

close by with the troops behind him. A negro stood near him,

holding a large military cloak. Just then Edwin Coppoc thrust

me aside, and thrust the muzzle of his gun into the hole, drawing

a bead on Lee. I interposed, putting my hand on the rifle and

begging the man not to shoot, as that was Colonel Lee, of the

United States army, and if he were hurt the building would be

torn down and they'd all be killed. Green again put up his

pistol and Coppoc readjusted his rifle. During this momentary

altercation, Robert E. Lee had stepped aside, and thus his life

was saved to the slaveholder's Confederacy."4

Shortly after the capture of the engine house, S. K.

Donovan, the first newspaper correspondent on the

ground after the raid commenced, impressed with the

apparent youth of Edwin Coppoc, his bearing and frank

face that seemed out of harmony with the tragic experi-

ences of the last two days and nights went up to him and

said:

"My God, boy, what are you doing at a place like this?"

"'With remarkable coolness' said Donovan 'the boy an-

swered, as I recall the words, I believe in the principles that

we are trying to advance and I have no apologies for being

here. I think it is a good place to be.' "

The capture took place on the morning of October

18. Coppoc was held with the other prisoners in the

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414      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

armory guard room until noon of the following day

and then taken with them to the jail at Charlestown,

Virginia, the seat of justice of the county in which the

raid occurred.*

Governor Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, went on the

train that carried the prisoners. Years afterward, Rev.

Joseph L. Coppoc, a younger brother who was not at

Harper's Ferry, in a magazine article said:

"While on the train carrying the prisoners from Harper's

Ferry to Charlestown, Governor Wise approached my brother

and eyeing him a moment said to him, 'You look like too honest

a man to be found with a band of robbers.'

"'But, Governor,' he replied, 'we look upon you as the rob-

bers.' "

It was while in jail that Edwin wrote to Dr. H. C.

Gill and other friends at Springdale, Iowa, a character-

istic letter containing a tribute to his comrades and a

description of the fight as he saw it. Following are the

essential portions of the letter:

"And with them are the forms and faces of those that, to

me, were more than comrades, who fell in the fearful struggle.

Eleven of our little band are sleeping now in their bloody gar-

ments with the cold earth above them. Braver men never lived;

truer men to the plighted word never banded together. Five

of them fell while fighting in self-defense for the cause for which

they had enlisted; three on the afternoon of the 1₇th; the first

a negro by the name of Dangerfield Newby; he fell on the street

by my side, whilst we were running to the aid of some of our

friends who were surrounded by the enemy. Two men, Steward

Taylor and Oliver Brown, fell by the engine-house. Taylor

lived about three hours after he was shot; he suffered very much

* F. B. Sanborn quotes Coppec as making the following statement

to the Virginians after his capture:

"I am a Republican philanthropist and came here to aid in liberating

negroes. I made the acquaintance of Captain Brown in Iowa as he re-

turned from Kansas, and agreed to join his company. Brown wrote to

me in July to come on to Chambersburg, where he first revealed the

whole plot. The whole company was opposed to making the first demon-

stration at Harper's Ferry, but Captain Brown would have it his own way.

and we had to obey orders."

• 19
 

Edwin Coppoc                    415

 

and begged of us to kill him. Oliver died in about fifteen min-

utes after he was shot; he said nothing. During these last

moments we could not administer to their wants such as they

deserved, for we were surrounded by the troops who were

firing volley after volley, so that we had to keep up a brisk fire

in return to keep them from charging upon us. Two more fell

in the engine-house on the morning of the 18th, when the last

charge was made-Jeremiah Anderson and Dolph Thompson.

"They both had surrendered after the first charge, which

was repulsed, but, owing to the noise and confusion, they were

not heard. Captain Brown and I were the only ones that fought

to the last. The negro Green, after I had stationed him behind

one of the engines, the safest place in the house, laid down his

rifle and pulled off his cartridge-box, and passed himself off for

one of the prisoners. He and I were the only ones not wounded.

"Watson Brown was wounded about 10 o'clock on Monday

at the same time Stevens was, while passing along the street

with a flag of truce, but was not so badly wounded but he got

back in the engine-house. During the fight in the afternoon he

fought as brave as ever any man fought, but as soon as the fight

was over he got worse. When we were taken in the morning he

was just able to walk. He and Green and myself were put in

the watch-house. Watson kept getting worse from then until

about three o'clock Wednesday morning when he died. I did

everything in my power to make him comfortable. He begged

hard for a bed, but could not get one, so I pulled off my coat

and put it under him, and placed his head in my lap, and in that

position he died.

"Cook and Tidd had left the Ferry early in the morning, by

order of Captain Brown, to cross the river for the purpose of

taking some prisoners and to convey the arms to a schoolhouse

about one and a half miles from the Ferry, there to guard them

until the Captain came, but, hearing a heavy firing, Cook went

down to learn the cause. On gaining the side of the river op-

posite the Ferry, he found we were surrounded, so he ascended

the mountain in order to get a better view; while there he saw

parties firing on us. In order to relieve us he fired on them

and in doing so he drew the fire on himself, the result of which

was the cutting of a limb and giving him a fall of about fifteen

feet down the mountain side, tearing his clothes, and lacerating

his flesh. There were thirty or forty men in the first party he

fired on who, after the second shot, were taken with a sudden

leaving, having no doubt important business elsewhere. The

Virginians who were present give him the credit of being a

splendid shot at a long range, as they admit they made a very

near acquaintance with some of his bullets.

• 20
 

416      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

"But enough of this. Whatever may be our fate, rest assured

we shall not shame our dead companions by a shrinking fear.

They lived and died like brave men. We, I trust, shall do the

same. And our souls with no sin of intention on their robes will

gaze unmoved upon the scaffold and the tomb. We were de-

ceived in some things. Even Captain Brown acknowledges that;

but all is over now, so let it pass. There are true and brave

men in Virginia who deeply sympathize with us in our misfor-

tune. I suppose within the last two days from eight hundred to

one thousand persons have visited us, some through sympathy,

but more through animosity.

"Among those who called to-day were three young ladies from

Harper's Ferry, friends and acquaintances of Cook. They

stood and gazed on us for a moment with deep earnestness and

then burst into tears. One of them told Cook that all of his

friends and acquaintances at the Ferry had formed the highest

opinion of him and regretted he should have gone into such a

scheme. They parted from us with tear-dimmed eyes and the

deepest expression of sympathy for us in our sad position.

* * * I have not seen the Captain or Stevens since our trials,

but the jailer tells me they are doing well; their wounds will soon

be healed. J. E. Cook sends his love to all."⁴

Edwin Coppoc was brought into court for arraign-

ment chained to his old leader, John Brown. His trial

immediately followed that of Brown. When asked if

he had anything to say why sentence should not be

passed, he spoke briefly as follows:

"The charges that have been made against me are not true.

I never committed any treason against the State of Virginia. I

never made war upon it. I never conspired with anybody to in-

duce your slaves to rebel and I never even exchanged a word

with any of your servants. What I came here for I always told

you. It was to run off slaves to a free state and liberate them.

This is an offense against your laws, I admit, but I never com-

mitted murder. When I escaped to the engine house and found

the captain and his prisoners surrounded there, I saw no way

of deliverance but by fighting a little. If anyone was killed on

that occasion it was in fair fight. I have, as I said, committed

an offense against your laws, but the punishment for that offense

would be very different from what you are going to inflict now.

I have no more to say."5

• 21
 

Edwin Coppoc                     417

The meditations of this youth while in prison doubt-

less took a wide range. There were hours of regret

and the feeling that his allegiance to the cause of free-

dom did not require or justify the hazardous enterprise

on which he had embarked. There were recurrent

hours of sadness that he should have taken up and used

arms against his fellowman, in violation of the prin-

ciples that had guided his early life at home and in the

church. Then there was the natural longing at times

for the peace and comfort that he had known on the

farm in Columbiana County or later with his mother at

Springdale. In such reflective mood he penned the fol-

lowing letter:

"CHARLESTOWN, Nov. 5th, 1859.

"Dear Mother and Father: It is with much sorrow that I

now address you, and under very different circumstances than

I ever expected to be placed, but I have seen my folly too late

and must now suffer the consequences, which I suppose will

be death, but which I shall try and bear as every man should;

though it would be a source of much comfort to me to have died

at home. It has always been my desire, that, when I came to

die, my last breath should be among my friends; that in my

last moments they could be near me to console me. But alas!

such is not my fate. I am condemned and must die a dishonor-

able death, among my enemies, and hundreds of miles from

home.

"I hope you will not reflect on me for what I have done, for

I am not at fault, at least my conscience tells me so, and there

are others that feel as I do. We were led into it by those that

ought to have known better, but who did not anticipate any dan-

ger; but after stopping at Harper's Ferry we were surrounded

and compelled to fight, to save our own lives, for we saw our

friends falling on all sides. Our leader would not surrender

and there seemed to be no other resort than to fight, though I

am happy to say that no one fell by my hand, and am sorry to

say that I was ever induced to raise a gun. I was not looking

for such a thing. I am sorry, very sorry, that such has been

the case. Never did I suppose that my hand would be guilty of

raising a gun against my fellow men. After our capture, which

was on the morning of the 18th, we were kept there until the

Vol. XXX-27

• 22
 

418      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

evening of the 19th when we were removed to this place, where

we have been ever since. We are well cared for. The jailer

seems to do all he can to make us comfortable.

"Nov. 6th. -I have just finished a letter to Mr. Painter,

which I expect to send out tomorrow with this. I sent one yes-

terday to Dr. Gill, stating to him that it was not worth while

for any of you to come, but on thinking more about it, I con-

cluded that I would like to see some one from there, so tomorrow

I intend -to telegraph for the Doctor to come.

"I have written J. Painter and told him what to do with my

land, but whatever money is spent by anyone coming here, I wish

to have it replaced out of the land.

"The captain has had some apple pies and preserves sent

him from Ohio, by some friends. I presume they do not go bad

though I have not had a taste.

"If the Doctor has not started when this gets there, and you

have any sweet cakes or other nick-nacks, just send them along.

They will go very good here between the iron bars. We get

plenty to eat here, but it is not from home. It is not baked by

the hands of those we love at home, or by those whom I never

expect to see.

"I don't feel like writing more. I hope and trust the Doctor

will come, and if anything is in the way so he cannot come, I

hope some one else will come in his stead. I believe I have

nothing more to say. This may be the last letter you may get

from me. If it is, think of me as one who thought he was

doing right.

"Give my love to Brigss' and Maxsons' folks and to all in-

quiring friends for [of] such I feel I have a large circle, and I

trust that what I have done will not make them enemies. My

love to all the family.

No more,

EDWIN COPPOC."5

In prison and condemned to die, Coppoc was yet

jealous of the honorable reputation he had borne in the

communities where he had lived. An anonymous writer

had sent to the New York Tribune a letter which had

been published in that paper, derogatory of his charac-

ter. This was copied in many papers including the

Virginia Free Press, published in Charlestown. To this

letter Edwin Coppoc replied through the same paper in

• 23
 

Edwin Coppoc                    419

a communication bearing date of November 14, 1859, as

follows:

"MR. EDITOR: I see in your last issue, a letter purporting to

come from Salem, Ohio, which was published in the New York

Tribune. In regard to the statements which are made in that

letter, which place my character in an unenviable light before

the public, I will only say, that they are fake from beginning to

end. Any person, who under the circumstances in which I am

placed, would stoop so low as to circulate such a libel about a

doomed man, places himself below the level of the brute. And

then the base and cowardly manner in which it has been

done bears at once the mark of fakehood on its front. No name

has been signed, but simply the letter S. at the conclusion. If

he was a man; if he was telling the truth, why was he afraid to

sign his name to it? It is true, my Father died when I but six

years of age, when I went to live with John Butler four miles

from Salem, Ohio, and with whom I lived nine years, and might

have remained until the present time, had not my mother wished

me to go with her and the other members of our family to Spring-

dale, Cedar County, Iowa, where I remained till the spring of

1858, when I went to Kansas for the express purpose of pur-

chasing some land. I took no part in the difficulties of Kansas,

and never, while there, had any association or acquaintance with

Capt. Brown or any of his company. I remained in Kansas till

the following autumn, when I returned to Iowa. I had no ac-

quaintance with Capt. Brown until last winter, and last spring

agreed to join him, while he was at Springfield [Springdale].

In regard to the truth of my statement I will refer you to Mr. John

Butler, my former guardian, Amos Fossit, and David Parker,

William Fisher, Jacob Heaton, Isaac Carr, and William Mead,

all of Salem, Ohio, and its neighborhood. In Springdale, Cedar

County, Iowa I would refer [to] Messrs. Thomas Winn, P. M.,

Dr. H. C. Gill, Thomas James, Emmor Rood, Jesse Bowersock,

John Parynive, Moses Varney, Nathan Tabor, James Schooler,

Ebenezer Gray, Steven Dean and William Madison, all of

Springdale and its vicinity. In Pedee, of the same county and

state, I would refer to William Street, P. M., Samuel Moore,

John Moore, Preston Roberts, and Burton Gifford. In Pardee,

Atchison County, Kansas Territory, I would refer to Dr. Moore,

P. M., James Booth, Amos D. Taylor, Mahlon Oliphant, Ben-

jamin Ball, William Cummings and Richard Allen. If these

are not references enough I can give you ten for every one I

have here named, who will testify to the falsity of the statements

of the cowardly calumniator, who has written from Salem, Ohio.

• 24
 

420      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

"By giving the above an insertion in your paper you will

greatly oblige, -Yours truly,

EDWIN COPPOC."²

In contradiction to the anonymous letter, John But-

ler made a statement which appeared in the Salem

(Ohio) Republican of November 29, 1859. The follow-

ing excerpt is here reproduced:

"* * * In the spring of 1842 his mother applied to me

to take Edwin into my family and have the care of him, he then

being, as we supposed, near seven years old, his father having

died a few months previous to that time. He accordingly came

without any time being fixed then how long he should remain

and stayed with us until the spring of 1850, during which time

there was nothing particular to remark in point of character,

except that he gave evidences of an unusually strong will in

trying to carry out his own views and also that he was very

fearless, never manifesting anything like cowardice in times of

danger or by night. He was a very industrious and careful boy,

more careful and particular that everything was kept in its

proper place on the farm and about the buildings and to have

his work done well and prompt to have it done in a given time,

than is common for boys of his age. * * *"

In the meantime strenuous efforts were made to save

Edwin's life. His previous good record, his deportment

in prison, his courage and frankness, together with the

large number of highly respectable Quaker friends who

interceded in his behalf, appealed very strongly to the

Virginia authorities, including Prosecutor Hunter,

Judge Parker and Governor Wise.       Thomas Winn, a

Quaker friend of the Coppoc family from Springdale,

took the lead in the effort to have the sentence com-

muted to life imprisonment. And most adroitly and

effectively he pressed the plea for mercy. In reading

the papers he presented, one cannot fail to be impressed

with the pursuasive power that he brought to bear to

accomplish his great desire.     Himself a consistent

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*

• 25
 

Edwin Coppoc                    421

 

Quaker who was opposed to the settlement of any ques-

tion by the arbitrament of war, he was in a position to

disclaim all sympathy with the armed invasion of Vir-

ginia. The following extract from his letter to Gov-

ernor Wise, dated "Springdale, Cedar County, Iowa,

11th mo. 4th, 1859," indicates the line of his plea:

"Edwin Coppoc is a Quaker by birth and education although

not strictly a member of that body of Christians. He has mingled

almost daily in the society of those who in relation to the vexed

question of slavery and other questions of public interest, are

known by all the world to believe in and pray for a peaceful

solution of surrounding difficulties as alone desirable and most

truly calculated to secure the Divine favor  Knowing this I

cannot but believe that his being found at Harper's Ferry in a

course of conduct so totally repugnant to all his previous modes

of thought and action must have been the result of a temporary

alienation of mind, something akin to insanity, if not insanity

itself. I have no sort of sympathy whatever for the leaders in

this movement. In my opinion all such proceedings involve a

grievous wrong, and result in serious and widespread mischief

to both sections of our common country. They must be con-

demned by all right-thinking persons.

"In the case of Edwin Coppoc, however, there are mitigating

circumstances which I have endeavored to bring into view and

I beg the Governor to take these calmly into consideration. I

feel encouraged to invoke thy friendly offices in his behalf, on

the score of his youth and inexperience, and because having

known him from his boyhood I am constrained to believe that

in embarking on the enterprise he was not in his right mind and

had no adequate conception of its character. * * * I be-

lieve Edwin to be incapable of doing, intentionally, a mean or

unworthy action. Indeed there is a native nobility of char-

acter about him which I think must have been observed by those

who have been brought into contact with him since the sad

event which we all deplore. I fervently hope, therefore, that

his life may not be taken. * * * Surely in a case like this

the 'Old Dominion' can well afford to be magnanimous. * * *

In the consciousness of her strength, let her pity this child's

weakness. Spare the fatherless boy to his poor, broken-hearted

mother now fast passing into the evening of her days -then

shall the language be truly applicable, 'The blessing of him that

• 26
 

422      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

was ready to perish came upon me and I caused the widow's

heart to sing with joy.'

"Very respectfully and truly thy friend,

THOMAS WINN,

Postmaster of Springdale."2

Mr. Winn afterward went to Harper's Ferry, Char-

lestown and Richmond, Virginia. On his arrival in the

last named city he at once addressed a letter to Governor

Wise in a friendly and grateful vein, expressing the

hope that his mission might be successful. He wrote in

part:

"On my arrival in Charlestown, 3oth ult. I immediately

reported myself to Andrew Hunter, Esq., and was most cor-

dially received by him and his excellent family. I frankly stated

to them the object of my visit to Virginia, and my hopes were

greatly strengthened at finding that their sympathies were al-

ready kindly enlisted on behalf of Edwin. The fact of his

youth, and having been undoubtedly deluded into John Brown's

wicked schemes without a full appreciation of their true nature

and extent; his uniformly good conduct since his confinement

in jail, and the unexceptionable character of his correspondence,

had already produced a favorable impression. 'He is the best

of all our prisoners,' said Mr. Hunter to me. 'I give him all

the letters that come for him. I find them so entirely unex-

ceptionable.' It was also very gratifying to learn that Judge

Parker was inclined to a merciful view of this case, and that the

feeling of sympathy is general and the desire freely expressed

by influential persons that Edwin's sentence might be commuted.

"At Harper's Ferry I found the same sentiment existed.

Armistead Ball and some other gentlemen to whom I was intro-

duced stating very clearly their belief that no one fell by Edwin's

hand, and that his conduct throughout was very different from

that of those with whom he had (although but for a brief period)

most unfortunately connected himself, and concluded by ex-

pressing the hope and belief that Governor Wise would commute

his punishment."²

That these letters and petitions had much weight

with the Governor is evidenced by the remarks of Hon.

A. H. H. Stuart, who on December 12, 1859, presented

to the Virginia Senate and House of Delegates the

• 27
 

Edwin Coppoc                    423

memorial of Thomas Winn, asking for commutation of

the death sentence of Edwin Coppoc. Mr. Stuart said

in part:

"I called to see the Governor, and he authorized me to say

that, from his personal knowledge, and from information

gathered by him during his stay in Charlestown, the case of this

man stands upon a very different footing from that of the other

individuals who have been sentenced. He informs me that he

is a youth of about 23 years of age and that he has borne an un-

exceptionable character up to the time of the difficulty. There

are present here in our lobby several members of the Society

of Friends, who have an intimate knowledge of this man since

he was seven years of age. * * * These gentlemen inform

me that he was their trusted agent in the transaction of business,

and frequently in the collection of money, and that in all cir-

cumstances he acquitted himself with fidelity and truthfulness.

They express the deepest sympathy for him and the Governor

informs me, moreover, that this young man, while he was in the

engine house at Harper's Ferry, was the means of saving the

lives of the prisoners * * * that he frequently remonstrated

with them about the exposure of their persons and pointed out

places of safety which he insisted they should occupy, while he

remonstrated against the murder of others on the street by some

of his associates. I know nothing of the facts myself, * * *

I give them to you as they have been communicated to me."6

Mr. Thomas of Fairfax, in discussing the report of

the legislative committee on the memorial of Thomas

Winn, made an even more explicit statement of the

favorable attitude of Governor Wise:

"The Governor of Virginia appeared before the committee

and enlightened that body very much in reference to the action

and extent of Coppoc's guilt in the Harper's Ferry affair so far

as it was known to him. He said, moreover, that from his

knowledge of Coppoc's relation to the whole movement, and

particularly his course with reference to the prisoners whom

Brown had captured, he would have taken upon himself the

responsibility of commuting his sentence to imprisonment for

life, though in that act he should not have the approval or sanc-

tion of a single individual in the State. And this he said he

would do because he believed the act to be just and right."6

• 28
 

424      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

Among the papers of Governor Wise is the petition

of Thomas Winn endorsed by the governor as follows:

"This man's plea for Coppoc coincides with my own view

of the case, from his confession to me in this:--that he is the

only one entitled to the least mercy. Whether he is, is question-

able."

Novm. 15, 1859.                    H. A. WISE.."²

This was written before Winn's visit to Virginia.

Later the Governor was confirmed in his view and rec-

ommended the commutation of Coppoc's sentence as in-

dicated in the address of Mr. Thomas.

In an interview published in the St. Louis Globe-

Democrat, as late as 1888, Andrew Hunter referring to

the persistence of an "old gentleman," evidently Thomas

Winn, gives the following interesting reminiscence:

"When he (Coppoc) was in jail an old gentleman came all

the way from his people to see him, bringing him a pound cake

to comfort him. The old gentleman stopped at my house on

the way in, and I advised him to wait until I went down town,

but he would hurry on ahead with his pound cake, and when I

got down, sure enough, he was in the guard house, as I antici-

pated. I got him out and passed him into the jail, with the

cake for Coppoc. After he had visited the prisoner, he went

all the way to Richmond to intercede. I believe he would have

got commutation for Coppoc if I had not shown that treason

could not be pardoned."⁶

Among the touching appeals for mercy is a letter

from the young man's uncle, Joshua Coppock, dated

"Salem the 11 mo. 24th 1859." After explaining his re-

lationship to the prisoner he said:

"I feel for my dear nephew. I hope thee will not have him

hung. * * * Thee will see by his advice to the prisoners in

the arsenal to keep out of danger he did not want to see them

hurt. Governor Wise, please to read this, and if thee can avoid

hanging, do, I entreat thee."²

• 29
 

Edwin Coppoc                    425

It was left for Mr. Isbell, the member from the

county of Jefferson in the Legislature, to voice the atti-

tude of Virginia, not only toward the imprisoned Har-

per's Ferry raiders, but toward the North. Because of

the representative character of his address, a somewhat

extended extract is here presented. Mr. Isbell said:

"This is the first time that so grave an offense has been

committed against the state of Virginia, and, so far as I am in-

formed, the first proceeding under the law of treason that has

ever taken place. This proceeding sprang from an offense which

is calculated to disturb the inhabitants of our whole northern

border and it becomes us to make such examples of the marauders

now convicted and under sentence as will operate to restore

confidence to these people and deter others from similar acts

of murder and rapine. It is said, Mr. President, that this man

Coppic was deceived as to the motives of John Brown in coming

to Virginia. He could not have been deceived. He was one of

that band who had put upon his conscience the oath of fidelity

to Brown in subverting the government and exciting the slaves

to rebellion. He is as much guilty of murder as any man con-

victed before the courts-as much guilty, if not more guilty,

than John Brown himself; for, so far as I am aware, it was not

shown in evidence that Brown shot anybody in that struggle.

This man Coppic was, moreover, fully cognizant of and partici-

pator in the military preparations set on foot at Brown's farm,

some months previous to the invasion. He stands precisely in

the same position with the other prisoners who were convicted

of murder and exciting slaves to rebellion. All of them pre-

sented the plea that they came not for the purpose of slaughter-

ing our citizens, but of carrying off their property--with the

intention not to commit any act of personal violence upon the

people of the commonwealth except when that people decided

to resist them in their unlawful course. In view of these facts,

Mr. President, I am in favor of withholding, from the executive

of this state, the power of pardoning Coppic, or any other of

the prisoners convicted at Charlestown for their connection with

the Harper's Ferry invasion. But, sir, it is said that having

upheld our laws, and enforced our authority-that having

vindicated ourselves before the whole country, and shown to the

North and to the South, and to the whole world in fact, that we

can defend ourselves, and mean to do it, and enforce our laws

against whomsoever may dare to violate them - that having

presented these vindications to the world we might temper

• 30
 

426      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

justice with mercy and pardon these men who have been the

greatest offenders against our laws that have ever been brought

before our courts for trial. I say that, in the existing relations

between the North and South, it becomes rather the duty of Vir-

ginia to give notice to the whole world--that he who dares

place his foot upon her soil, with the same hellish purpose that

actuated the prisoners now in custody at Charlestown, shall hang

as high as Haman, and that no mercy shall be accorded to him

who comes in the dead of night to murder our citizens. I be-

lieve that it is impolitic to extend this pardon to Coppic, or any

other of those prisoners. I believe that we shall best subserve

our interests by upholding our laws and executing all persons of

this class as soon after conviction as may be convenient. While

I am a law abiding man, while I have been educated to believe

that all criminals should be brought before a court of justice

and have the benefit of all the forms of trial, yet, on occasions

of this sort, on the spur and excitement of the actual transaction

itself, with all these preconceived opinions and feelings, I fear

I should almost doubt my ability to insist that the criminals

should have the benefit of a trial, should they be taken by our

own citizens. For this reason I am utterly opposed, in every

aspect in which this case can be presented, to any mercy being

shown to this man.^"6

"In the existing relations between the North and

South." This is the real basis of the fervid appeal of

Mr. Isbell.  Governor Wise and other individual Vir-

ginians in high position might be willing to extend clem-

ency, and under all the circumstances the attitude of the

Governor was generous, chivalrous and courageous, but

no power could withstand the resolution of the chosen

representatives of the commonwealth, of Virginia. The

"irrepressible conflict" was already on, and the Legisla-

ture of Virginia was resolved from the first that no

guilty man from the North should escape.

Among those who sought other excuse for with-

holding clemency were some who found it in the publi-

cation in the New York Tribune of December 12, 1859,

of a letter of November -, purporting to have been

written from Coppoc to the wife of John Brown. As

• 31
 

Edwin Coppoc                    427

this letter has figured somewhat prominently in the case

and was referred to in the Legislature when the memo-

rial of Thomas Winn was up for consideration, it is here

reproduced in full:

"Mrs. John Brown -Dear Madam: I was very sorry that

your request to see the rest of the prisoners was not complied

with. Mrs. Avis brought me a book, whose pages are full of

truth and beauty, entitled 'Voice of the True-Hearted,' which

she told me was a present from you. For this dear token of

remembrance, please accept my thanks.

"My comrade, J. E. Cook, and myself, deeply sympathize

with you in your sad bereavement. We were both acquainted

with Anna and Martha. They were to us as sisters, and as

brothers we sympathize with them in the dark hour of trial and

affliction.

"I was with your sons when they fell. Oliver lived but

a few moments after he was shot. He spoke no word but yielded

calmly to his fate. Watson was shot at 10 o'clock on Monday

morning, and died about 3 o'clock on Wednesday morning. He

suffered much. Though mortally wounded at 10 o'clock, yet at

3 o'clock Monday afternoon he fought bravely against the men

who charged on us. When the enemy were repulsed, and the ex-

citement of the charge was over, he began to sink rapidly.

"After we were taken prisoners, he was placed in the guard

house with me. He complained of the hardness of the bench on

which he was lying. I begged hard for a bed for him, or even

a blanket, but could obtain none for him. I took off my coat

and placed it under him, and held his head in my lap, in which

position he died without a groan or a struggle.

"I have stated these facts, thinking that they may afford

to you, and to the bereaved widows they have left, a mournful

consolation.

"Give my love to Anna and Martha, with our last farewell.

'Yours truly,

"EDWIN COPPOC."

Some of the members of the Virginia senate spoke

of this letter and made certain expressions in it the occa-

sion for their vote in withholding sanction of executive

clemency. Thomas Winn was convinced that the publi-

cation of this letter at the critical time when it appeared

• 32
 

428      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

was the chief influence that turned the scale again the

life of Coppoc. In a letter to the widow of John Brown,

written January 13, 1860, he says:

"Governor Wise appeared before the committee and ably

advocated the commutation of his punishment. Many of the most

influential senators were also in favor of it. Unfortunately,

however, while the subject was before the Legislature the New

York Tribune made its appearance, containing a letter signed

Edwin Coppic, addressed to thyself, which was used success-

fully to defeat the application for mercy. Senators objected to

the tone of the letter and particularly to the paragraph which

speaks of the Virginians as 'enemies' and refused to show him

any mercy."¹⁰

Winn states further that Edwin denied writing the

letter and said that it had been written by Cook, his

fellow prisoner. It is said to have been sent by Mrs.

Brown to Winn and soon afterward to have disap-

peared.

It should be explained in this connection that the

letter got into the Tribune in an account of the funeral

of John Brown at North Elba, New York. Rev. J. M.

McKim, in delivering the funeral sermon, read the letter.

It appears that neither Cook nor Coppoc left any

written statement in regard to the letter, and in the

absence of the original manuscript discussion as to its

authorship would probably leave the reader in doubt.

It must be admitted, however, that the language is much

like that of Coppoc and does not resemble the style of

Cook's letters. If Cook wrote it, the motive for not sign-

ing it himself, of course, would be that he thought Mrs.

Brown would appreciate the letter more if it were not

signed by him, but it expresses sentiment and relates

experiences that were Coppoc's, not Cook's.

After all it is much more than probable that the

• 33
 

Edwin Coppoc                   429

letter had little weight in determining Edwin's fate.

The speech of Isbell in any event would have swept

away all pleas for mercy. It made Coppoc the chief

offender in the raid, and the result would doubtless have

been the same regardless of the letter. Virginia at this

time was determined to go to the limit in dealing with

"invaders and traitors," and to hang "as high as

Haman" those who came with arms in their hands to

liberate the slave. From the beginning, there was small

reason to expect clemency from the Legislature of Vir-

ginia. That hope went out when it became known that

Governor Wise did not have the power to commute the

sentence of Edwin Coppoc.*

The time for his execution was rapidly approaching.

On December 13, 1859, he wrote to his uncle, Joshua

Coppock, the remarkable letter that deserves to rank

among the poignant and prophetic utterances called

forth by the long anti-slavery struggle preceding the

Civil War. If at other times what he wrote had the

tone of regret to be expected from a farmer boy caught

in the net of circumstance, this letter reveals the man,

mindful still of his impending fate, but sustained by de-

votion to a cause and faith in the speedy coming of that

"glorious day" which he could see in vision almost from

the platform of the scaffold. Following is the letter:

 

CHARLESTOWN, Dec. 1₃th, 1859.

"MY DEAR UNCLE;

"I seat myself by the stand, to write for the first, and last

time, to thee and thy family. Though far from home and over-

taken by misfortune, I have not forgotten you. Your generous

* Hazlett and Stevens were not executed until March 16, 1860. The

part of the former in the raid was slight and the latter was shot down

while bearing a flag of truce, but no mercy was shown to either. Virginia

was determined to have the life of each of these condemned men.

• 34
 

430      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications. hospitality towards me, during my short stay with you last spring, is stamped indelibly upon my heart; and also the gen- erosity bestowed upon my poor brother, who now wanders an outcast from his native land. But thank God he is free. I am thankful that it is I, who has to suffer, instead of him. "The time may come when he will remember me, and the time may come when he will still further remember the cause in which I die. Thank God, the principles of the cause in which

we were engaged will not die with me and my brave comrades They will spread wider and wider, and gather strength with each hour that passes. The voice of truth will echo through our land, bringing conviction to the erring, and adding numbers to that glorious army who will follow its banner. The cause of everlasting truth and justice will go on conquering, to conquer, until our broad and beautiful land shall rest beneath the banner of freedom. "I had hoped to live to see the dawn of that glorious day. I had hoped to live to see the principles of the Declaration of our Independence fully realized. I had hoped to see the dark stain of slavery blotted from our land, and the libel of our boasted

• 35
 

Edwin Coppoc                    431

 

freedom erased, when we can say in truth, that our beloved

country is the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

"But this cannot be. I have heard my sentence passed. My

doom is sealed. But two more short days remain for me to ful-

fill my earthly destiny. But two brief days between me and

eternity. At the expiration of those two days, I shall stand

upon the scaffold to take my last look of earthly scenes, but

that scaffold has but little dread for me; for I honestly believe

that I am innocent of any crime justifying such punishment.

But by the taking of my life, and the lives of my comrades, Vir-

ginia is but hastening on that glorious day, when the slave shall

rejoice in his freedom. When he can say, "I too am a man, and

am groaning no more under the yoke of oppression."

"But I must now close. Accept this short scrawl as a re-

membrance of me. Give my love to all the family. Kiss little

Josey for me. Remember me to all my relatives and friends.

And now farewell for the last time.

"From thy Nephew,

"EDWIN COPPOC.

"P. S. Thee wished to know who was here with me from

Iowa.

"Thomas Winn is here and expects to stay until after the

execution; and then will convey my body, to Springdale. It is

my wish to be buried there.

"I would of [have] been glad to see thee or any of my other

relatives: but it is now too late.

"I did not like to send for any of you, as I did not know

whether any of you would be willing to come.

"I will say, for I know that it will be a satisfaction to all of

you, that we are all kindly treated and I hope that the North will

not fail to give Sheriff Campbell and Captain Avis due acknowl-

edgment for their kind and noble actions.       "E."7

"While there is life there is hope," -so runs the

trite adage. When Edwin Coppoc wrote the foregoing

letter he did not expect to escape execution, but he was

even then working out with his fellow prisoner, John E.

Cook, a plan devised by them     to regain their liberty.

Along one side of the cell in which they were confined

was a heavy plank, held in place by screws. With the

aid of two knives and a long heavy screw taken from

• 36
 

432      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

their bedstead they loosened the plank and under the

shadow of darkness took out some of the bricks from

the jail wall. A few of these were concealed in the bed;

others were left loose in the aperture that was forming

back of the single outer layer of brick that remained to

be removed on the night chosen to make the final effort

for freedom.

And a faithful friend was ready to assist, just out-

side of the prison walls, - an active Free State partisan

from Kansas, who had arrived at the Ferry too late to

join the followers of John Brown in the attack. His

name was Charles Lenhart. In the hope that he might

in some way aid his old leader and the other prisoners

he took on the disguise of a pro-slavery sympathizer, de-

nounced the raiders, enlisted in the Virginia militia, was

present at the execution of John Brown and had re-

mained in Charlestown in the hope that he might be of

service to his friends. On the night chosen by Cook

and Coppoc for the escape, Lenhart was sentinel at the

angle of the jail where they had planned to scale the

wall. He of course was not to see them, they were to

flee to the mountains - and liberty.*

Thus far fortune had favored their efforts. On the

evening of December 14, Lenhart was at the post out-

side of the prison wall. The shadows of night fell on

the valley and over the mountains. The sentry paced

 

* Colonel Richard J. Hinton, in his John Brown and His Men, states

that Charles Lenhart was in all probability in the same file of Virginia

militiamen with John Wilkes Booth at the execution of John Brown. In

his account of the attempted escape of Coppoc and Cook he says: "In the

town was a Kansas man, Charles Lenhart, who under disguise was striv-

ing to be of service. On the night of the 14th of December, Lenhart was

on guard at the angle of the jail wall where, the next night, the spectacle

of their heads above its edge created the alarm of a faithful pro-slavery

sentinel."

Lenhart enlisted in the Union army at the outbreak of the Civil War,

was commissioned lieutenant, and died in the service in 1863.

• 37
 

Edwin Coppoc                     433

PLAN OF JAIL AT CHARLESTOWN This plan and the explanation are taken from John Brown and His Men, by Colonel Richard J. Hinton, and are here reproduced by special permission of the publishers, Funk and Wagnalls Company. Vol. XXX-28

• 38
 

434       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

back and forth eagerly looking through the darkness for

the appearance of his friends on top of the wall back

of the jail. Anxiously he watched and listened. Mid-

night, and no sign from the gloomy prison. Slowly and

silently passed the hours until a new day faintly dawned

over the mountains, - and the imprisoned men did not

come forth.

In the meantime Cook and Coppoc were in serious

whispered conference in their cell. On the very day pre-

ceding this night, Cook's brother-in-law, Governor

Ashbel P. Willard, of Indiana, Mrs. Willard, his sister,

and a lady friend of the family had called for their final

farewell. The parting was very affecting, for Mrs. Wil-

lard was strongly attached to her brother. She was so

overcome that she and her husband did not leave

Charlestown that evening as they had planned.

Cook felt that his escape that night in accordance

with the carefully laid plans would involve his brother-

in-law and his sister in charges of complicity, and he

refused to leave the jail.* He urged Edwin Coppoc to

go, but he would not desert his comrade in the crisis.

They decided to wait until the next night and take their

chances when a stranger was on guard outside.

 

* In these times political excitement ran high in Indiana. Governor

Willard, the brother-in-law of Cook, had been attacked by an influential

Republican paper of Indianapolis as a confidant in the Harper's Ferry

raid. Democratic papers very generally were charging that Republicans

were responsible for this and the Republican press in Indiana could not

forego the opportunity to retaliate by ascribing all sorts of motives to

Governor Willard, who was a Democrat and who did all he could, with

the aid of Daniel W. Voorhees and Joseph E. McDonald, both afterward

United States senators, to save Cook's life. Governor Willard was wholly

innocent of the charges brought against him by the politicians and his

course throughout this trying experience was highly honorable. He died

in 1860, before the expiration of his term of office. It was because of

this unjust criticism that Cook was resolved to do nothing to make his

brother-in-law still further an object of suspicion.

• 39
 

Edwin Coppoc                    435

Early in the night of December 15, they removed

the thin layer of brick and without difficulty reached the

open space in the jail yard. The scaffold on which John

Brown had been executed was there. Up this Coppoc

climbed to the top of the outer wall and lay there at full

length. Cook followed, but before mounting the wall

held up his hat on a stick to learn whether the guard

outside was on the watch. The prisoners were detected,

the alarm given and the chance to escape was gone.

Had the attempt been made the night before with

Charles Lenhart on guard it is needless to say that there

would have been a very different record to write. On

the morning of the execution, Cook wrote an account

of the attempt to escape which was signed by him and

Coppoc. It is as follows:

"Having been called upon to make a fair statement in regard

to the ways and means of our breaking jail, I have agreed to

do so from a sense of duty to the sheriff of the county, our

jailer, and the jail guard. We do not wish that any one should

be unjustly censured on our account. The principal implements

with which we opened a passage through the wall of the jail

were a barlow knife and a screw which we took out of the bed-

stead.

"The knife was borrowed from one of the jail guards to

cut a lemon with. We did not return it to him. He had no

idea of any intention on our part to break out, neither did the

sheriff, jailer, or any of the guard, have any knowledge of our

plans.

"We received no aid from any person or persons whatever.

We had, as we supposed, removed all the brick except the last

tier, several days ago, but on the evening previous to our break-

ing out, we found our mistake in regard to that matter.

"We had intended to go out on the evening that my sister

and brother-in-law were here, but I knew that it would reflect

on them, and we postponed it -but I urged Coppoc to go and

I would remain, but he refused. We then concluded to wait.

"I got a knife blade from Shields Green, and with that made

some teeth in the barlow knife, with which we sawed off our

shackles. We had them all off the night previous to our getting

• 40
 

436      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

out. Coppoc went out first and I followed. We then got up on

the wall, when I was discovered and shot at. The guard outside

the wall immediately came up to the wall.

"We saw there was no chance to escape, and as it was dis-

covered that we had broken jail, we walked in deliberately and

gave ourselves up to the sheriff, Captain Avis, and the jail guard.

There was no person or persons who aided us in our escape.

This is true, so help us God.

"JOHN E. COOK,

"EDWIN COPPOC."⁴

Intense excitement followed the attempt of the pris-

oners to escape. The people flocked in from the sur-

rounding country to witness the executions. These

were times when a legal hanging was still regarded as

something of a holiday. The exhibition had not yet

been driven by public opinion from the light of day to

the darkness of midnight and the seclusion of the dun-

geon. It is claimed that four or five times as many

were present as at the execution of John Brown. The

place and scaffold were the same. Newspaper reports

differ in detail, even in the statements in regard to the

weather. From the Associated Press we learn that "the

weather was bright and cheerful and much milder than

for several preceding days," while the correspondent of

the Cincinnati Gazette reports that "the heavens were

overcast, the air raw and bitter and the ground covered

with a slight snow."

So far as known, the very last letter written by

Edwin Coppoc was the short note to his faithful and

resourceful friend, Thomas Winn. It was as follows:

"MY DEAR FRIEND THOMAS WINN: For thy love and sym-

pathy, and for thy unwearied efforts in my behalf, accept my

warmest thanks. I have no words to tell the gratitude and love

I have for thee. And may God bless thee and thy family, for

the love and kindness thee has always shown towards my family

and me. And when life with thee is over, may we meet on that

• 41
 

Edwin Coppoc                  437

 

shore where there is no parting, is the farewell prayer of thy

true Friend,

"EDWIN COPPOC."⁸

On the morning of December 16 the prisoners were

aroused early and prepared for execution. The minis-

ters and a few others besides the officers were permitted

to meet them before they left the jail.

"It is hard to die," remarked a Quaker to Coppoc.

"It is the parting of friends, not the dread of death

that moves us," was the reply.

The two men were remarkably cheerful before leav-

ing but seated on their coffins their expressions changed.

One correspondent wrote:

"The countenance of Coppoc changed; his face wore a set-

tled expression of despair. He looked wildly around upon the

crowd, and his large eyes lighted with an unnatural luster. Many

a heart sighed for him. Most of the community were anxious

for a commutation of his sentence."

Like John Brown, this youth in his last hours was

sustained by the faith that the cause was worthy of the

sacrifice. But he was young and the current of health

coursing through his veins made life precious and its

surrender sad.

Arriving at the scaffold, "the calm and collected

manner of both was very marked." "They both exhib-

ited the most unflinching firmness, saying nothing,

with the exception of bidding farewell to the ministers

and sheriff." "After the cap had been placed on their

heads, Coppoc turned toward Cook and stretched forth

his hand as far as possible. At the same time Cook

said, 'Stop a minute -where is Edwin's hand?' They

then shook hands cordially and Cook said, 'God bless

you'."

• 42
 

(438)

• 43
 

Edwin Coppoc                439

After everything was in readiness, Cook said "Be

quick -as quick as possible," which was echoed by

Coppoc, and in a few moments they departed this life

forever.

After receiving a letter from his nephew, Joshua

Coppoc had gone at once to Charlestown. The day be-

fore the execution he talked over with Edwin and

Thomas Winn matters of mutual interest and the for-

mer changed the request, expressed in his letter, to a

preference for burial near his birthplace in Columbiana

County.

Back to Salem Joshua Coppock and Thomas Winn

brought the body in a coffin provided by the state of

Virginia. Arrangements were promptly made for a

quiet funeral in accord with Quaker custom. No daily

papers then announced the latest news to the people in

the rural districts, but in spite of that fact they came in

great numbers on December 18 to attend the funeral.

Until late in the afternoon they continued to come, some

through curiosity no doubt, but very generally through

sympathy. All were seriously respectful. The number

that came, many to remain but a short time, was esti-

mated at between two and three thousand, and the last

simple rites took on the aspect of a large public funeral.

In the little room at the home of Joshua Coppock where

the body lay, a neighbor woman, Rachel Whinnery,

from an adjoining farm, rose and in fitting voice read

the following address that she had prepared only the

evening before:

"Friends: A brother lies before us, murdered by brothers'

hands! Every heart present should swell up in deepest sympathy

for the youth, who, apparently, is taking a calm slumber here,

to recuperate a system which looks full of health and vigor. How

can we realize that this is Death? No sickness has wasted his

• 44
 

440      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

natural form, nor has an unforeseen accident laid him low. With

the stamina of life about him to have lengthened his time to

fourscore years and ten, the cord of life is rent asunder at twenty-

four years. The violent hands of man have been laid upon him.

His own words are, 'I am thankful that no one fell by my hands!'

He, as one of old, fell among thieves, and though the good

Samaritans were there to bind up his bleeding, mental wounds,

his physical life was sacrificed, and he was murdered for a

principle, and that principle was Freedom! On that broad and

expanded brow, may be traced the lineaments of Liberty.

Slavery has snatched, as it were, a birdling from our own dove-

cote, a brother from our own fireside-what can she more?

"The people of Virginia have manifested a great degree of

hospitality towards the friends of the departed, who were with

him; but what can they give equivalent to that which they have

taken away? Can that mother, whose sight is almost obliterated,

feel that she can be thus recompensed for so sad a bereavement?

Every mother's heart that looks on the lifeless form before us,

will feel that Virginia has not only done HER, but themselves,

too, a grievous wrong. Would that I could this day summon

Governor Wise and the Legislative body of Virginia here to let

them gaze on the victim of their barbarous vengeance, and from

thence direct it to the aged grandmother, over whose head the

snows of four-score winters have passed, bowed with grief, that

one so full of life, and so young in years must cross the valley

of the shadow of Death before his time. I would have them

gaze on the saddened faces, the falling tears of Other relatives

and friends, and if they were not affected by this, need we won-

der at the infamous deed they have committed.

"Not one smiling face is here today. Sadness overhangs

us like a pall! But this is only for the physical; mortality has

put on immortality, and to him the physical is laid aside. He

died, as died other martyrs before him, and the good and the

true, among the present and coming generations, will feel that

for him there is a crown of glory, where dungeon walls will not

loom over him; where manacles cannot gall his limbs, and where

that awful feature of barbarism, THE GIBBET, will not appall

his soul. With the beautified throng of angels, we leave thee,

Oh! our Brother! Thy physical form we consign to Mother

Earth; thy soul to thy Father, God, who gave it."⁸

As evening approached the body was borne out into

the yard and permitted to rest a short time while the

silence was broken briefly by a solemn voice closing with

this appeal:

• 45
 

(441)

• 46
 

442     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

"Let us here over this lifeless body and as if standing at

the altar of Christ, consecrate our lives anew to go and battle

manfully for truth and righteousness, and for the overthrow of

the bloody system that sacrifices millions of our fellow men."9

As the setting sun in bars of red cloud passed below

the horizon, the remains of Edwin Coppoc were lowered

into the grave in the Friends' Churchyard, among the

quiet hills and valleys of his childhood days. When the

shadows of night had fallen and the funeral crowd had

vanished, a few sturdy men entered the Friends' Church

with arms in their hands to guard the dead, for a rumor

had gone abroad that an effort would be made to rob

the new made grave.

The salutation to John Brown when he arrived at

Springdale, Iowa, among the Quakers was, "Thee is

welcome, but we have no use for thy guns."  For the

first time rifles were carried into the little Ohio church

and some Quakers were beginning to have "use for

guns."

After the funeral, of course it was the one topic of

conversation about the country firesides for many miles

around, and there was much sympathy and resentment

in the town of Salem. Dissatisfaction was felt at the

quiet funeral. Fear was expressed that the body would

be removed by pro-slavery sympathizers. Someone said

in the midst of a crowd of listeners that it was little

short of a disgrace to permit the body of this young

martyr to remain in a coffin furnished by the slave state

of Virginia. This view soon found frequent expression.

There was a demand for a more public funeral in order

that the sentiment of Salem and the surrounding coun-

try might have adequate expression. Announcement

was made in the papers and in a handbill signed by

• 47
 

Edwin Coppoc                   443

prominent citizens of Salem, a facsimile of which ap-

pears on another page. December 30 was fixed upon as

the date for the second and final burial, in Hope Ceme-

tery, Salem, Ohio.

It occurred to one of the anti-slavery leaders of the

town that the handbill with a personal letter should go

to Governor Wise, of Virginia. A copy of the original,

which is still in the archives of the state of Virginia, is

here presented for the first time in print:

"SALEM COL. Co. O. 12th Mo 28th 1859.

"To HENRY A. WISE:

"It has been on my mind for some time to address a few

lines to thee but have waited until the great tragedy in which

thee has been engaged is over.

"I am satisfied that an awful doom rests over Virginia, not

only for her hugging the accursed System of Slavery so close to

her vitals, but for the wilful murder of some of the best men

that have graced the pages of history for many generations. I

mean John Brown and his most noble followers.

"Enclosed thee will find an advertisement. We expect to

have 8 or ten thousand people present on its occasion.

"Thine respectfully,

"DANIEL BONSALL.

"N. B. We shall not bury Edwin Coppick in the Virginia

Coffin, but would be rejoiced if her Governor would Come, or

send for it.

"D. BONSALL."²

The appointed day brought a very large crowd of

people to Salem to attend the final obsequies. The fol-

lowing account in the main is a paraphrase of the one

published in the Salem Republican:

In the morning the people began to arrive, some of

them from a considerable distance. Long before the

appointed hour, one o'clock in the afternoon, the town

was thronged with thousands of strangers, who came

to pay the final tributes of respect and sympathy. The

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444      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

• 49
 

Edwin Coppoc                         445

body of the dead youth was still well preserved but his

face, so lifelike at the former funeral, had begun to dis-

color. It was shrouded in a costly metallic coffin to

which it had been transferred. Alfred Wright at the

head of a committee of arrangements had charge of the

funeral. The body lay in the Town Hall, which had so

often, in the years gone by, rung with appeals for the

cause that took Edwin Coppoc to Harper's Ferry.

Rev. James A. Thome,* of Ohio City, now a part of

Cleveland, offered a prayer, which he followed with

brief remarks. He declared that Coppoc's purpose was

righteous and that he died "a martyr to the sacred cause

of liberty."

"I visited this place more than twenty years ago," he said,

"before this young man was born, to defend the doctrine of

human rights. Here before me lies the victim of that irre-

pressible warfare upon human rights, waged by the bloody system

of the slave states."

* Rev. James A. Thome was born in Augusta, Kentucky, January 20,

1813. He died in Chattanooga, Tennessee, March 4, 1873. In 1833 he

entered Lane Theological Seminary, but withdrew from that institution

with other students rather than withdraw from an anti-slavery society

that had demanded immediate emancipation. In 1835, he entered the

theological school at Oberlin, Ohio, from which he was graduated in 1836.

Soon afterward he became active as an agent of the American Anti-

Slavery Society and was chosen as one of its representatives to make a

tour of the West Indies and report the effect of emancipation in the

British West Indies. He and his associate made a report on their return,

which was widely circulated as an anti-slavery document. He was a

professor in Oberlin college 1838-1848. He then became pastor of the

Congregational Church of Ohio City, later a part of Cleveland, and con-

tinued to preach there for twenty-three years. In November, 1871, he

accepted a call to Chattanooga where he preached until near the date of

his death. Prior to the war, after his graduation from Oberlin, he was

frequently on the lecture platform advocating the emancipation of the

slaves. His near relatives in his native state liberated their slaves, largely

through his influence. With William Lloyd Garrison he was a delegate

to the International Anti-Slavery Society that met in Paris after the

close of the Civil War. His funeral services were conducted from the

First Congregational Church of Cleveland where he was buried.

• 50
 

446     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

Through the Town Hall passed the throng, estimated

at six thousand, unusually silent and solemn, even for

such an occasion.

Later the body was borne out of the hall to the

hearse and the procession moved to the grave on the hill

in the following order: First, the near relatives; Sec-

ond, the pall bearers; Third, the colored people for

whose race the deceased had given his life; Fourth, cit-

izens on foot, followed by those from a distance in car-

riages.

The coffin was lowered into a strong plank box, well

ironed, in a grave of unusual depth.

In the evening all that could enter the Town Hall

listened to the impressive funeral discourse by Rev.

Thome. The meeting was organized by calling to the

chair Jacob Heaton, who for years had been a recog-

nized leader in the anti-slavery cause. After prayer by

Rev. Burke of Wayne County, the congregation sang

the stirring hymn, "Blow, ye trumpet, blow."  The

speaker took as his theme, Daniel and the writing on

the wall, declaring that "like the message to Belshazzar

was John Brown's to enthroned iniquity." "Here," said

he, "is grandeur; here is God's own work and grace,

here where it is treason to proclaim God's truth; here

in an age of sounding brass - are these great souls,

like living organs through whose trumpet notes God has

blown an anthem that shakes the land like an earth-

quake."

The sermon was described by one who heard it as

remarkably eloquent - such as one is permitted to hear

only once in a lifetime.⁵

And thus the remains of this unpretentious youth,

this warrior in the anti-slavery cause, whose life was

• 51
 

Edwin Coppoc                    447

full of vicissitudes, found a final resting place in a spot

that he had known in childhood days. His warfare was

over and his sleep so deep that it could not be broken by

the opening gun at Fort Sumpter, the marching of "that

glorious army" to the southland, the thunders of con-

tending hosts on a hundred battle fields, the final over-

throw of Lee whom he had spared to lead the Confed-

erate legions, the triumph of liberty and union, the "Dec-

laration of Independence fully realized." All this, which

he was not permitted to witness with mortal eye, he saw

in vision before he went to his final rest.

 

A number of estimates of the character of Edwin

Coppoc are now at hand. Without exception they are

favorable. Mrs. Annie Brown Adams, the daughter of

John Brown, who knew Coppoc at Harper's Ferry, thus

speaks of him:

"He was of fair skin, had a well balanced, large head, dark

brown hair and eyes. * *   * He was quite simple and fas-

cinating in his ways: - a rare young fellow caring for and fear-

ing nothing, he yet possessed great social traits and no better

comrade have I ever met."⁴

George B. Gill has left the following interesting

estimate:

"Edwin had a birthright in the Society of Friends. All of

his nearest relatives, with the exception of his brothers, were

zealous adherents of that Society. [Edwin] early developed a

business capacity, accumulating horses, oxen and also land. He

was a young man of great force and decision, accompanied by

the most winning manner and amiable ways. Intellectually his

peers in his country home were few. His courage was equal

apparently to any emergency. Amiable, loving and brave, no

gathering whether of mind or muscle, whether the aims were

physical or social, was complete without him. Honorable, loyal

and true, mirthful, yet full of the thoughtful sympathies of life;

a magnetism attracting and holding all within the firm clasp

• 52
 

448      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

of friendship; some five feet seven or eight inches in height,

with a rugged, well-knit frame which accepted without fear all

the tests that a life of labor gives. One world at a time, and

that world this, was all the world that he knew; another to him

was a thing of beauty, full of joy and song.

"But the world went wrong. A blight came-a crushing

of hopes in a manhood whose intensity could not dream of love's

resurrection or time's healing power.* Amid the dream a larger

love was born and for that love he died."10

Edwin Coppoc was not forgotten in the section of

Ohio where he was born. His death made a deep im-

pression which did not pass with his obsequies. It in-

spired the volunteers who answered their country's call

when the slogan, "No union with slaveholders" was

changed to "The union with no slaveholders"; and

many a Quaker boy renounced the non-resistant article

of his creed, put on the uniform of blue and marched

away under the flag to battle for liberty and union.

When the struggle ended and the country was electrified

by the news that Lee had surrendered, the people of

Salem, men, women and children, came forth to cele-

brate "that glorious day." Among them was a youth,

a teacher in the high school, born and reared a Quaker

in the country south of the town, who suggested that an

effigy of General Lee be placed in the coffin in which the

body of Edwin Coppoc had been brought from Harper's

Ferry - an exhibit of the compensating justice of his-

tory. This was promptly done, and on the shoulders

of this youth and three others the coffin with the effigy

was borne at the head of the great procession in the

midst of the wildest enthusiasm that Salem had ever

known.

The youth who figured in this event still lives to

 

*There are traditions of this disappointment, but nothing more

definite than the above statement.

• 53
 

Edwin Coppoc                449 tell, in his modest way, the story which will be found on succeeding pages. Our readers will recognize in him one of the leading scholars and teachers that Ohio has produced, whose fame as such is state-wide, nation-wide and international.

At the close of the Civil War Coppoc's memory was thus honored. His grave is at the entrance of Hope Cemetery. Past it the bodies of many a youth who fell in that conflict have gone to their rest. With them he is still remembered and on each Memorial Day the modest but substantial monument that marks his grave is crowned with a wreath of flowers. Vol. XXX-29

• 54
 

NOTES

1. Rebecca J. Douglas of Indianapolis, Indiana, is prepar-

ing a genealogy of the Coppoc family. She has kindly consented

to the use of her notes in the preparation of the preceding and

succeeding articles on Edwin and Barclay Coppoc.

2. Oswald Garrison Villard, grandson of William Lloyd

Garrison, editor of the Nation and author of John Brown, A

Biography Fifty Years After, in the preparation of the latter

work collected much material relating to John Brown's men.

He kindly loaned this to the writer for use in the preparation

of the skecthes of Edwin and Barclay Coppoc. This included

(2) papers from the Virginia archives; (6) manuscript extracts

from scrapbooks and other papers in the library of the Kansas

Historical Society; (10) copies of manuscripts and letters in

the possession of the Brown family. This material has been of

very great value, as will be seen, in the preparation of these

sketches.

3. Irving B. Richman wrote a contribution for the Histor-

ical Society of Iowa entitled John Brown Among the Quakers.

This was afterwards published in separate form. The refer-

ences bearing this number are to this interesting contribution.

4. Colonel Richard J. Hinton, in 1894, published his well

known work, John Brown and His Men. He was personally

acquainted with all of Brown's men and was himself one of

them. He had expected to be at Harper's Ferry but the pre-

cipitation of the attack there prevented his participation. The

writer is under obligations to this work for somewhat copious

extracts and frequent references. It is an invaluable source of

information on the men who went with John Brown on his

foray into Virginia.

5. The references bearing this number are to the Salem

(Ohio) Republican, the early files of which are in the public

library at Salem, Ohio. Extracts from these files were made

by the writer, by the Librarian, Miss Anna P. Cook, and her

assistant, Mrs. Blanche C. H. Lease, for whose copy in type-

written form grateful acknowledgment is here made.

6. See (6) in note 2.

7. This is from the original letter, long in the possession of

Sarah Coppock Bailey, daughter of Joshua Coppock. This letter

(450)

• 55
 

Edwin Coppoc                    451

 

is now, through her kindness, in the possession of the Ohio State

Archaeological and Historical Society.

8. Typewritten copy furnished by Mrs. Samuel Coppock

who has kindly given much information to the author in the

preparation of these sketches.

9. Cleveland Leader, January, 1860.

10. See (10) in note 2.

 

LOCK OF EDWIN COPPOC'S HAIR.

Recently the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical

Society has received from Samuel Coppock, of Winona, Ohio,

a lock of the hair of Edwin Coppoc, which is now to be seen

with the other mementos in the museum of the Society.

 

LETTER OF EDWIN COPPOC.

The letter of Edwin Coppoc to his uncle Joshua is repro-

duced verbatim with a single exception: in the twelfth line from

the top of page 431, between the word "say" and "I" in the

original the word "that" occurs. The italicized portions were

underscored in the letter. Slight faults in orthography have

been corrected. The letter is written in a clear and steady hand.

In view of the circumstances under which it was written, it is

a remarkable production, as is also the address of Rachael Whin-

nery at the funeral.

• 56