Biographical Profiles
Harpers Ferry 1859

John Brown (1800-1859) was the architect and leader of the raid on Harpers Ferry Virginia (now West Virginia), on October 16 th, 1859. Brown had long nourished a dream to create a “Subterranean Passway” using the Appalachian mountain range to help guide slaves to freedom. Brown believed in both immediate and unconditional emancipation, and the equality of African Americans. At Harper’s Ferry, Brown intended to seize the arsenal himself with a small band of followers, and assumed that slaves would flock to the location to buttress what Brown hoped would become a history-altering slave revolt. They would then travel north to freedom; this journey, he aspired, would be the cornerstone of his Subterranean Passway. However, Brown’s planned uprising at Harpers Ferry failed. The hordes of slaves Brown expected never came. Brown lost two sons in the process. Nevertheless, Brown’s composure during his trial and execution polarized the nation and contributed to the rising section tension that marred the election of 1860.

John A. Copeland was a black graduate of Oberlin College and one of the members of the group who conducted the ill-fated raid at Harper’s Ferry. Upon realizing that the raid was doomed, Copeland and two others fled across the Shenandoah. Of the three, only Copeland was not shot down. Copeland lived to surrender and was hanged alongside Shields Green, a former fugitive slave.

Francis Merriam was another of Brown’s raiders at Harpers Ferry. Merriam was the “one-eyed and mentally challenged” descendent of an elite Boston abolitionist family. Merriam was assigned to help guard the Kennedy farmhouse (where Brown and his raiders lived prior to the raid) and help supply to weapons to the schoolhouse (where Brown intended to distribute munitions to the arriving slaves). After the raid failed, Merriam was one of several raiders who was able to escape to the north, though not without difficulty. Merriam caught a train at Scotland and proceeded all the way to Boston. Here, a fearful Frank Sanborn (a member of the “Secret Six,” or those who funded Brown’s raid) turned him over to Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, who secured his escape to Canada.

Judge Andrew Parker was a Virginia judge who presided over the trial of John Brown and sentenced him to hang on December 2, 1859. A distinguished man of pleasant countenance, Parker was acutely aware of the political implications the trial presented and he did all he could to speed up the official court proceedings, including denying Brown’s request to postpone the trial so that he might recover from his injuries. Ultimately, this tactic would work in Brown’s favor, as many in the North criticized what they saw as a half-hearted effort at a fair trial.

Gov. Henry A. Wise (1806-1876) was the governor of Virginia during John Brown’s raid. An austere man with presidential ambitions, Wise wanted John Brown tried by a Virginia court. Though Wise detested Brown’s actions, he also could not help but admire Browns character, calling him “a man of clear head, of courage, fortitude simple ingenuousness.” Ironically, it would be some of Wise’s speeches that would help convince many Northerners that Brown was not a madman, but a man whose character, if not his actions, should be admired. (Christian Observer, “Character of John Brown”, 10 November, 1859)