Annie Brown Homepage (U.S. National Park Service)



|Thomas Allstadt | |Charles Plummer Tidd |

|Allstadt was 18 years old at the time of the raid. He lived at his father’s | |A former Maine woodsman, he met John Brown in Tabor, Iowa. He was a veteran of the |

|plantation in Jefferson County, Virginia, about 2 ½ miles from Harpers Ferry. | |Kansas wars and had been with Brown since 1857. He was considered a man with strong |

| | |family feelings. |

|Jeremiah Anderson | |Daniel J. Young |

|He was a grandson of a slaveholder. He joined Brown in Kansas and at Harpers Ferry. | |The master machinist at the rifle factory, he went to |

|Jeremiah also joined Brown to free slaves in Missouri in 1858. | |work on October 17, 1859 to find that John Brown’s |

| | |men had taken over the armory. Upon encountering |

| | |some of the raiders, he learned of their cause. They |

| | |made no attempt to take him hostage. Young then went to warn the other mechanics and |

| | |laborers of the danger. |

|Osborn P. Anderson | |Henry Wise |

|One of John Brown’s raiders, he was a free African American from Canada. He was | |Henry Wise was the Governor of Virginia during the John Brown raid. He traveled to |

|working for the Provincial Freeman, a newspaper in Canada, when he met Brown. | |Harpers Ferry to question John Brown immediately after the raid. Many people pleaded|

| | |with Wise to pardon Brown from death, but he disregarded their appeals. |

|Captain Turner Ashby | |William Thompson |

|He served as a cavalry general in the Confederate Army. Ashby was killed in a | |He was 26 years old when he joined John Brown at Harpers Ferry. William was a |

|rear-guard action near Harrisonburg, Virginia, on June 6, 1862. In regards to the | |neighbor of the Brown family in North Elba, NY. One of his brothers married a |

|Civil War, | |daughter of John Brown. |

|Ashby would comment, “the war began not at [Fort] Sumter but at Harpers Ferry.” | | |

|John Avis | |Dauphin Thompson |

|He was a local militia officer and the county jailor. John Brown gave his pledge to | |He was 20 years old when he joined John Brown. He had never been away from home when|

|Avis that he would not try to escape. Avis escorted Brown to the gallows. | |he traveled to fight at Harpers Ferry. He was the youngest of 18 children. His |

| | |older brother William was also a raider. |

|John Wilkes Booth | |Aaron Stevens |

|Booth was from a very well-known family of stage actors. He came to Charlestown to | |A veteran of the Mexican War, Stevens joined Brown in Kansas. He was known for his |

|witness John Brown’s execution. | |strength and his beautiful voice. Stevens was one of Brown’s most trusted soldiers. |

|Thomas Boerly | |Dangerfield Newby |

|He was the local grocery man. He was an Irish immigrant who lived in Harpers Ferry | |He was a former slave who joined John Brown |

|with his wife and three children. He was known for his physical strength. | |to free his wife and children from slavery. At 44, Newby was the oldest of Brown’s |

| | |raiders. |

|Annie Brown | |William Williams |

|John Brown’s fifteenth child, Annie was born in 1843 in Richfield, Ohio. She came to| |Williams was the guard on the B&O railroad bridge. He was the first to encounter |

|the Kennedy Farm to cook, clean, wash, and watch. Arriving from New York on July | |Brown’s men. |

|19th, she stayed until September 29th. | | |

|John Brown | |Daniel Whelan |

|Brown was 59 years old at the time of the raid. He was the commander and chief of | |Whelan was the night watchman for the U.S. Armory at Harpers Ferry. He was posted at|

|the raid at Harpers Ferry. | |the front gate when Brown and his men arrived. He was 39 years old at the time of the|

| | |raid. |

|Oliver Brown | |George Turner |

|He was the youngest son of John Brown to join the raid. Oliver was a veteran of the | |He was a citizen of Harpers Ferry during the raid. He was an area planter and a West|

|fighting in Kansas. He was 21 years of age when he came to Harpers Ferry. | |Point graduate. He was known for his impeccable manners. George did not have a wife|

| | |or family. |

|Owen Brown | | |

|He was the third son of John and his first wife Dianthe Brown. Owen fought with his | |Lieutenant J.E.B. “Jeb” Stuart |

|father in Kansas and Virginia. Owen acted as the rear guard and never entered the | |Stuart was 26 years old and an officer at the |

|town of Harpers Ferry. | |time of the John Brown raid. He came as Lee’s aide-de-camp from Washington, D.C. to |

| | |Harpers Ferry. Stuart recognized Brown from his service in Kansas prior to the raid.|

|Joseph Brua | |Francis Merriam |

|He was an armory worker in Harpers Ferry during Brown’s raid. Joseph was not married| |He was a Boston historian and abolitionist. He was considered an unstable |

|and had no children. | |personality. Despite his frailty and blindness in one eye, Merriam’s hatred of |

| | |slavery made him determined to join John Brown. |

|John Cook | | |

|He was a lawyer who attended Yale University. Cook acted as Brown’s advance man in | |Dr. John T. Starry |

|Harpers Ferry. He moved to the town and immersed himself in the community. He even | |Starry, a citizen of Harpers Ferry, played a prominent role during Brown’s raid. He |

|married Miss Mary Kennedy of Harpers Ferry, who knew nothing of her husband’s plan to| |was the town’s physician and was 35 years old at the time of the raid. |

|raid the town with John Brown. | | |

|John Copeland | |Edmund Ruffin |

|A free African American, born in South Carolina, he was 25 years old at the time of | |Ruffin was a fire-eater, a term used to describe a radical secessionist. He |

|the raid. Just prior to joining John Brown, Copeland was a student at Oberlin | |distributed “John |

|College in Ohio. | |Brown pikes” to political leaders in the South to fan the fire of secession. He |

| | |traveled to Charlestown in order to witness John Brown’s execution. |

|Barclay Coppoc | |Marine Private Luke Quinn |

|He was one of Brown’s raiders. He was only 20 years old at the time of the raid. He| |He was one of the marines brought from Washington to subdue John Brown. |

|gave up his Quaker beliefs and decided to use violence to end slavery. | | |

|Edwin Coppoc | | Mary Mauzy |

|He was a young Quaker and brother to Barclay. He was 24 years old at the time of the | |She lived with her husband George and two children in Harpers Ferry during the raid. |

|raid. Both brothers joined John Brown at Harpers Ferry. | | |

|John Dangerfield | | |

|He lived in Harpers Ferry with his wife and four children. He worked as the | |William Leeman |

|paymaster clerk for the U.S. Armory and was also a slave-owner. | |Leeman was born in Maine. He was 20 years old when he joined John Brown in Kansas as|

| | |a member of his “Volunteer Regulars.” Brown’s daughter Annie said Leeman looked like|

| | |a girl. |

|Mahala Doyle | |Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee |

|Her family was among some of the pro-slavery settlers in Kansas. Her sons and husband| |He was a lifelong soldier. Lee had served in the United States Army with distinction |

|were murdered by John Brown’s anti-slavery militia during the struggle in Bleeding | |for 30 years at the time of the John Brown raid. Married to the great-granddaughter |

|Kansas. | |of Martha Washington, she and the children resided in Arlington. Lee was a |

| | |slave-owner and ran a large plantation. Lee was on leave back in Virginia when he |

| | |got a call to report to Harpers Ferry to put down the rebellion. |

|Colonel John T. Gibson | |John Kagi |

|His regiment, the 55th Virginia Militia, was the first on the scene to encounter | |He was educated and intelligent. A young lawyer and strong abolitionist, he was |

|Brown’s men. He helped seal Brown and his men inside Harpers Ferry. | |Brown’s second-in-command. |

|Lieutenant Israel Green | |Albert Hazlett |

|He was a career soldier and the lieutenant of the Marines who joined Robert E. Lee on| |He was one of John Brown’s raiders. He was 22 years old. He was a veteran of the |

|his mission to Harpers Ferry to put down the raid. | |Kansas wars, where he met Brown in 1858. |

|Shields Green | |Major Thomas Jonathan Jackson |

|He was a former slave from South Carolina who escaped to his freedom in Canada. He | |He was born in Clark County and attended West Point. He was 35 years old at the time|

|became a friend of Frederick Douglass while living in Rochester, NY. Green met Brown| |of the John Brown raid. Prior to the Civil War, he served in the Mexican-American |

|through his friendship with Douglass. | |War and then became a teacher at the Virginia Military Institute on the subjects of |

| | |artillery and philosophy. His first wife died in childbirth and he remarried. |

|Frederick Douglass | |Lewis S. Leary |

|A former slave, he was a national leader and orator in the anti-slavery movement, the| |A free African American, he was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina and was |

|editor | |attending Oberlin College in Ohio when he met John Brown in March of 1859. Leary left|

|of the North Star, and a friend to John Brown. | |behind a wife and baby to join Brown in his crusade against slavery. |

|Fontaine Beckham | |Stewart Taylor |

|He was the mayor of Harpers Ferry at the time of the raid. He was a widower, father,| |Born in Canada, Taylor was 22 when he joined Brown’s army. He shared a mutual hatred|

|and slave-owner. | |of slavery with Brown. John Brown’s daughter Annie called Taylor “the nearest thing |

| | |to a kook.” |

|Watson Brown | | |

|Watson was John Brown’s ninth child. He was 24 years old when he fought at Harpers | |Hayward Shepherd |

|Ferry. He left behind a wife and baby to join his father’s crusade against slavery. | |He was the railroad station baggage-master at |

| | |the Harpers Ferry train station and a free African-American. He was well liked in |

| | |the community and in his workplace. |

|Martha Brown | |Colonel Lewis Washington |

|Married to John Brown’s son Oliver, Martha Brewster Brown was just 17 years old when | |He was the great-grandnephew of President George Washington. At the time of the |

|she came to the Kennedy Farm with Annie. Her husband Oliver was only 21 years old. | |raid, Washington and his family lived in a mansion called Beallair, four miles from |

|Martha often did the cooking and cleaning while Annie kept watch. She said good-bye | |Harpers Ferry |

|to her husband and left with Annie from the farmhouse on September 29th. | |in Halltown. He was 46 years old at the time |

| | |of the raid. |

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