The Strange Story of Harper's Ferry, with Legends of the Surrounding CountryBarry, Joseph
History
The Strange Story of Harper's Ferry, with Legends of the Surrounding Country
Barry, Joseph
Harpers Ferry (W. Va.) -- History; Harpers Ferry (W. Va.) -- History -- John Brown's Raid, 1859
Edwin Coppic or Coppie was a young man aged about twenty-four years,
about five feet and six inches in height, compactly built and of a
florid complexion. He was a very handsome youth, and for various
reasons, great sympathy was felt for him by many. He was not wounded in
the skirmish, but he was taken prisoner by the marines in the engine
house. He had come from Iowa where resided his widowed mother, a pious
old lady of the Society of Friends. He had been for a long time in the
employ of a Mr. Thomas Gwynn, living near Tipton, Cedar county, in the
above mentioned state. Mr. Gwynn was a farmer and merchant and Coppic
assisted him as a farm laborer and "help" around his store. His employer
was much attached to him and came to Charlestown for his remains, which
he took with him to Iowa. After Coppic's conviction a petition was
forwarded to the governor of Virginia, requesting executive clemency in
his case. It was not successful, however, and he was executed as before
stated. In conversation with a citizen of Harper's Ferry who interviewed
him in his cell, Coppic said that, when he left his home in Iowa, he had
no intention to enter on any expedition like the one against Virginia,
but he confessed that his object was to induce slaves to leave their
masters, and to aid them to escape.
Of Barclay Coppic little is known in Virginia beyond the fact that he
was Edwin's brother and that he was with Brown's party in the raid. He
was with Owen Brown and Cook on the Maryland side of the Potomac while
the skirmish was in progress and he was not captured. It is said that he
was killed some years ago in a railroad accident in Missouri.
Albert Hazlett, of Pennsylvania, was a man of about five feet and eleven
inches in height, raw-boned and muscular. His hair was red and his eyes
were of a muddy brown color and of a very unpleasant expression. He was
very roughly dressed on the day of the raid, and in every sense of the
word he looked like an "ugly customer." He made his escape from Harper's
Ferry on the evening of the 17th, about the time when Brown withdrew his
force into the engine house, but he was afterward captured in
Pennsylvania and executed with Stevens. His age was about thirty-three
years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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