In the annals of history, some events refuse to fade, moments that became part of the nation’s collective memory. One such incident unfolded in the aftermath of John Brown’s execution. After the hanging of the militant abolitionist in Charlestown, VA, a funeral procession embarked on a long, arduous journey across six states, destined for his farm in North Elba, NY. On this trek, the funeral train, carrying the coffin, his widow, Mary, and two companions, traveled through a divided nation teetering on the brink of Civil War. Ultimately, the funeral cortege ended on a remote, quiet farm in the heart of the Adirondacks.
This arduous trek started soon after the state of Virginia executed Brown in Charlestown, VA, on December 2, 1859. Leaving behind the gallows, soldiers loaded the body aboard Conductor Dukehart’s Winchester and Potomac Railroad train for the short run on the rails to Harper’s Ferry. At the W&P station where John Brown launched his attack on October 16, Mary Brown and two companions, James Miller McKim, a Presbyterian Minister and abolitionist, and Hector Tyndale, a Philadelphia businessman, met the coffin. As the funeral party had to wait for the overnight express from Wheeling to Baltimore, railroad workers secured the coffin in the depot warehouse.
Funeral Train Crosses Maryland & Delaware
Around 3 a.m., the B & O engine from Wheeling steamed into the station, and the plain pine coffin was placed in a baggage car. Nearly four hours later, at 6:45 a.m., the engine arrived at Camden Station in Baltimore. Only a small crowd of about 20 people waited at the depot, and there workers placed the remains on one of John McClintock’s baggage wagons, which hauled it to the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Station to wait for the 8.30 a.m. run to Philadelphia.1
The morning express for Philadelphia departed Baltimore right on schedule, making its way through the rural landscape of the Northern Chesapeake and Delaware. As the funeral party rattled northward, they passed through the quiet countryside of Harford County, transferring onto the ferry at Havre de Grace and then passed the Elkton station at 10.40 a.m. The run through Harford, Cecil, and New Castle counties was quiet with only the sound of the locomotive breaking the quiet of fields, sleepy villages and towns along the way. However, beneath the tranquility of the countryside, the turmoil around the drama that had unfolded in Charlestown stirred and divided the nation.
Brown’s Body Passes Through Philadelphia
Upon its arrival in Philadelphia at about 12.45 p.m. on Saturday, December 3, the grieving widow, burdened by the weight of recent days, planned to have an abolitionist undertaker prepare the body and place it in a better coffin. However, the reception in the Quaker city was fraught with tension as word spread that John Brown’s body was arriving at the station.
Amidst fears of unrest, as a large crowd of supporters and opponents assembled, the mayor, accompanied by a contingent of police officers, met the train and devised a plan to divert the crowd’s attention. A long toolbox from the baggage car was somberly carried to a waiting hearse. While the crowd followed the decoy, the mayor swiftly orchestrated the discreet transfer of the body onto a furniture wagon to be transported to the ferry to Camden, NJ.4
From there, the Camden & Amboy Railroad provided passage to South Amboy, where a Quaker undertaker, John M. Hopper, met the funeral party at the New York Ferry. Renting a room in Manhattan, Hopper prepared the remains for burial. The news that John Brown’s body was in the city caused a crowd to gather at the undertaker’s shop.
Members of Hose Company 14 constituted themselves “into a guard of the dead. . . . All Sunday night, the hose company kept watch around the undertaker’s makin’ all their arrangements skillfully and systematically just as if they had been appointed by the police or by the county, the sentries of the dead,” the New York Sunday Mercury reported. Later that night, members of Hose and Engine companies No. 16 and Hook and Ladder No. 4 volunteered to assist the original guard as the long night wore on.5
Hudson River Railroad to Troy
After a day of rest on Sunday, Mary Brown and her companions resumed their journey at 5 a.m. on Monday, December 5, embarking northward aboard the Hudson River Railroad. As the train chugged along, newspapers chronicled the solemn passage, noting the tolling of church bells and the gathering of crowds along the route, bearing witness to the funeral train’s passing. By noon, they arrived in Troy, NY; the party was greeted by a reception marked by reverence and curiosity.6
The following morning, Tuesday, December 6, the cortege pressed onward to Eagle Bridge, NY, where the Rutland & Washington Railroad tracks took them to their evening destination, Rutland, VT. They departed for Vergness the following day, from which a ferry crossed Lake Champlain. A procession of carriages escorted them to the lake, where, with church bells ringing, they boarded the ferry.7
On the other side of the lake at Westport, NY, a wagon awaited to take them to Elizabethtown over an old plank road. Tuesday Night was spent at Adam’s hotel in Elizabethtown, NY, where Brown’s body lay in state at the Essex County Courthouse with an honor guard.
The Journey Reaches Its Conclusion
The journey’s final leg commenced at the dawn of the next day, December 7. The coffin and the mournful cortege made the arduous trip to Brown’s farm in two wagons. Over a day, they covered the 20 miles to North Elba.8,9
Here on John Brown’s farm, the final journey reached its conclusion. On December 8, 1859, after a long, arduous trek across a nation being torn apart by the issue of slavery, the fiery abolitionist was laid to rest. As the sun sat on remote, northern New York and the farm, the nation stood on the brink of upheaval. Sixteen months later, the Civil War erupted.
- “Passage of the Remains of John Brown,” The Sun, (Baltimore, MD), December 5, 1859.[↩]
- Map of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad, c. 1850.[↩]
- Charles P. Dare. Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad Guide. (Philadelphia: Fitzbiggon & VanNess, 1856), 57.[↩]
- Oswald Garrison Villard, John Brown, 1800-1859, a Biography Fifty Years After (London: Constable, 1910).[↩]
- “John Brown’s Body . . . in New York,” New York Sunday Mercury, December 18, 1881, reprinted article by the blog Harry Hill’s Gotham.[↩]
- “Arrival of John Brown’s Remains at Troy.” New York Times. December 7, 1859. 1.[↩]
- Tony Horwitz, Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War, (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2011), 260-261.[↩]
- Rev. Joshua Young, D.D. “The Funeral of John Brown.” New England Magazine, An Illustrated Monthly, Vol., 30 March, 1904-August, 1904, 229-243.[↩]
- “On the Trail of John Brown,” American Heritage Museum Exhibits, accessed May 19, 2024, https://ahmexhibits.omeka.net/exhibits/show/on-the-trail-of-john-brown–wh/on-the-trail-of-john-brown–wh.[↩]
- Thomas Nast, “Burial of John Brown.” New York Illustrated News. December 24, 1859, via Wikipedia.[↩]
