Barclay and Edwin Coppock

For his participation in John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Edwin was tried and convicted of treason, murder, and fomenting a slave insurrection, and was hanged in Charles Town, Virginia (since 1863, West Virginia), on December 16, 1859. He wrote to his uncle, Joshua Coppock, two days before his execution. The uncle went to Charles Town and brought Edwin's body to Salem; the "rude coffin" in which it was transported is held by the Ohio History Connection at its Museum in Columbus. The body was laid out three nights, with armed guard; the guard was to prevent anti-abolitionists from stealing the body to prevent the funeral. Attendance was described as "immense"; His remains were first buried in the Friends Burying Ground, New Garden, Ohio. Attendance at the burial was estimated to have been from two to three thousand. By 1888 he had been reburied in Hope Cemetery, about away in Salem, his grave marked by a plain brownstone monument some in height, marked only with his name and his birth and death dates. ==Barclay Coppock, in the Union Army==

Barclay, like Owen Brown and Francis Jackson Meriam, did not enter Harpers Ferry; they remained at the Kennedy Farm guarding the weapons. When it became clear that the raid was failing, they escaped northward, after much difficulty reaching John Brown, Jr.'s house in Ashtabula County, Ohio. Barclay continued to Canada, later returning to Springdale, Iowa, where his mother lived. On January 23, 1860, about three months after the Harpers Ferry raid, Iowa governor Samuel Kirkwood received from the governor of Virginia a requisition "for one Barclay Coppock, reputed to be a fugitive from the justice of Virginia". Kirkwood found the requisition deficient in legal form and returned it to Virginia. Barclay was gone to Canada by the time Kirkwood received the corrected papers. He later returned to Ashtabula County, Ohio, where John Brown Junior lived, and where raiders Owen Brown and Francis Merriam were taking refuge. A newspaper story reports that they were all registered to vote there. Barclay, along with Owen, addressed a meeting the day of Hazlett's and Stevens' executions. Barclay later joined the Union Army during the American Civil War and served as a recruiting officer. He was killed in action when Confederate sabotage derailed his train over the Platte River,{{cite journal ==See also==

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