| John Brown Bell | |
|---|---|
 The bell on display in Marlborough, Massachusetts | |
 | |
| General information | |
| Location | Marlborough, Massachusetts |
| Country | United States |
| Coordinates | 42°20′51″N71°32′44″W / 42.34747°N 71.54549°W |
The John Brown Bell, in Marlborough, Massachusetts, is a distinguished American Civil War-era bell that has been called the "second-most important bell in American history", after the Liberty Bell. [1]
At one time the bell was kept in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, In May 1861, Company I, 13th Massachusetts Infantry was on patrol in Harpers Ferry, and found the engine house where John Brown's raid ended on October 17, 1859. The bell was still in place, and knowing their hometown hook and ladder company needed a bell (many of them were firemen), they decided to take the bell, and brought it with them to Williamsport, MD.
While stationed in the town, Company I became friends with Elizabeth Ensminger who supplied them with bread. When the company was ordered to Virginia, they entrusted Elizabeth with the bell.
In September 1892, six of the original fifteen soldiers returned to Williamsport to see Elizabeth (then Snyder). They discovered that she had hung the bell in her back yard, and rang it on special occasions.
The men raised the money to bring the bell to Marlborough, where it now hangs in Union Commons Park in Marlborough, Massachusetts, and is currently located in a special tower built for the bell on Union Common in downtown Marlborough. [2]
In 1859, abolitionist John Brown led a raid on the Harpers Ferry Armory. The raid ended when Marines under the command of Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee stormed the building. Brown and 10 of his men were later hanged for murder and treason.
Two years later, with the Civil War beginning, a Marlborough unit in the Union Army took the bell from the Harpers Ferry Armory after being ordered to seize anything of value to the U.S. government to prevent it from falling into the hands of Lee's Confederate army.
Knowing their hook and ladder company in Marlborough needed a bell, the soldiers removed the 700-to-800-pound (320 to 360 kg) device and got permission from the War Department to keep it. [1]
Over the years, citizens of Harpers Ferry have tried in vain to have the bell returned to be exhibited in the John Brown Wax Museum or the reconstructed firehouse where John Brown was captured by Col. Robert E. Lee. "In the past, several mayors have tried to have it returned, but basically it's difficult to do. I suppose it requires a lot of energy that, frankly, no one has," James A. Addy, mayor of the Appalachian town of 310 that is about 60 miles (97 km) from Washington, D.C., said. "I believe the bell is wired with an alarm, so it can't be surreptitiously taken, like at night." [3] "Oh, they've wanted it back," said Joan Abshire, a member of the Marlborough Historical Society who recently finished a comprehensive study of the bell. "When I went down there (for research), they always said, 'Well, where's the bell?" The men from Marlborough saved it from obliteration, claimed Gary Brown, chairman of the city's Historical Commission, "Had they not taken the bell, it wouldn't exist. Virtually every bell in the South was melted down for munitions." [1]
Harpers Ferry is the name of several places in the United States of America:
Harpers Ferry is a historic town in Jefferson County, West Virginia, United States, in the lower Shenandoah Valley. The population was 285 at the 2020 census. Situated at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, where the U.S. states of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia meet, it is the easternmost town in West Virginia.
John Brown was an American abolitionist leader. First reaching national prominence for his radical abolitionism and fighting in Bleeding Kansas, he was eventually captured and executed for a failed incitement of a slave rebellion at Harpers Ferry preceding the American Civil War.
"A Plea for Captain John Brown" is an essay by Henry David Thoreau. It is based on a speech Thoreau first delivered to an audience at Concord, Massachusetts, on October 30, 1859, two weeks after John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, and repeated several times before Brown's execution on December 2, 1859. It was later published as a part of Echoes of Harper's Ferry in 1860.
Dangerfield F. Newby, was the oldest of John Brown's raiders, and one of the five black raiders. He died during Brown's raid on the federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia.
John Daniel Imboden, American lawyer, Virginia state legislator, and a Confederate army general. During the American Civil War, he commanded an irregular cavalry force. After the war, he resumed practicing law, became a writer, and was active in land development founding the town of Damascus, Virginia.
Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, originally Harpers Ferry National Monument, is located at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers in and around Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. The park includes the historic center of Harpers Ferry, notable as a key 19th-century industrial area and as the scene of John Brown's failed abolitionist uprising. It contains the most visited historic site in the state of West Virginia, John Brown's Fort.
John Brown's Fort was initially built in 1848 for use as a guard and fire engine house by the federal Harpers Ferry Armory, in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. An 1848 military report described the building as "An engine and guard-house 35 1/2 x 24 feet, one story brick, covered with slate, and having copper gutters and down spouts…"
Virginia v. John Brown was a criminal trial held in Charles Town, Virginia, in October 1859. The abolitionist John Brown was quickly prosecuted for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, murder, and inciting a slave insurrection, all part of his raid on the United States federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. He was found guilty of all charges, sentenced to death, and was executed by hanging on December 2. He was the first person executed for treason in the United States.
It was in many respects a most remarkable trial. Capital cases have been exceedingly few in the history of our country where trial and conviction have followed so quickly upon the commission of the offense. Within a fortnight from the time when Brown had struck what he believed to be a righteous blow against what he felt to be the greatest sin of the age he was a condemned felon, with only thirty days between his life and the hangman's noose.
John Anthony Copeland Jr. was born free in Raleigh, North Carolina, one of the eight children born to John Copeland Sr. and his wife Delilah Evans, free mulattos, who married in Raleigh in 1831. Delilah was born free, while John was manumitted in the will of his master. In 1843 the family moved north, to the abolitionist center of Oberlin, Ohio, where he later attended Oberlin College's preparatory division. He was a highly visible leader in the successful Oberlin-Wellington Rescue of 1858, for which he was indicted but not tried. Copeland joined John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry; other than Brown himself, he was the only member of John Brown's raiders that was at all well known. He was captured, and a marshal from Ohio came to Charles Town to serve him with the indictment. He was indicted a second time, for murder and conspiracy to incite slaves to rebellion. He was found guilty and was hanged on December 16, 1859. There were 1,600 spectators. His family tried but failed to recover his body, which was taken by medical students for dissection, and the bones discarded.
The Harpers Ferry Armory, more formally known as the United States Armory and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, was the second federal armory created by the United States government; the first was the Springfield Armory. It was located in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, which since 1863 has been part of West Virginia. It was both an arsenal, manufacturing firearms, and an armory, a storehouse for firearms. Along with the Springfield Armory, it was instrumental in the development of machining techniques to make interchangeable parts of precisely the same dimensions.
James H. Burton was born in Shenandoah Spring, Virginia. Educated at the Westchester Academy in Pennsylvania, Burton entered a Baltimore machine shop at age 16. In April 1844, he went to work at the Harpers Ferry Armory, serving as a machinist. He subsequently served as Foreman of the Rifle Factory Machine Shop, where he gained a considerable amount of knowledge and respect for the work of John H. Hall. Hall pioneered mechanized arms production and interchangeable manufacture at Harpers Ferry between 1820-1840. According to Burton, Hall's Rifle Works housed "not an occasional machine, but a plant of milling machinery by which the system and economy of the manufacture was materially altered." During the next three decades, Burton followed Hall's example by furthering the mechanization of arms production.
The Allstadt House and Ordinary was built about 1790 on land owned by the Lee family near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, including Phillip Ludwell Lee, Richard Bland Lee and Henry Lee III. The house at the crossroads was sold to the Jacob Allstadt family of Berks County, Pennsylvania in 1811. Allstadt operated an ordinary in the house, and a tollgate on the Harpers Ferry-Charles Town Turnpike, while he resided farther down the road in a stone house. The house was enlarged by the Allstadts c. 1830. The house remained in the family until the death of John Thomas Allstadt in 1923, the last survivor of John Brown's Raid.
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was an effort by abolitionist John Brown, from October 16 to 18, 1859, to initiate a slave revolt in Southern states by taking over the United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. It has been called the dress rehearsal for, or tragic prelude to, the Civil War.
Aaron Dwight Stevens was an American abolitionist. The only one of John Brown's raiders with military experience, he was the chief military aide to Brown during his failed raid on the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. For his role in the raid, Stevens was executed on March 16, 1860. He was 29.
Alfred Madison Barbour was a Virginia lawyer, one-term delegate in the Virginia House of Delegates and also in the Virginia Secession Convention of 1861. He may be best known for his role as Superintendent of the Harpers Ferry Armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia during John Brown's raid. Although Barbour voted against secession, he became a major in the Confederate States Army and served as a quartermaster during the American Civil War.
Israel Greene was a member of the United States Marine Corps and the leader of the company of Marines that captured John Brown during his raid on Harpers Ferry. He later left the USMC and served as an officer in the Confederate States Marine Corps during the American Civil War.
The Heyward Shepherd monument is a monument in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, constructed in 1931. It commemorates Heyward Shepherd, a free black man, who was the first person killed during John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. The monument was constructed to promote the pseudo-historical Lost Cause of the Confederacy myth, by falsely claiming that Shepherd was opposed to freeing the slaves.
On Sunday night, October 16, 1859, the abolitionist John Brown led a motley band of 22 in a raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Most were much younger than him, and varied dramatically in social class and education. "It would be hard to find again such a strange party as that which upheld John Brown in his daring expedition."