The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1898-02-13
SAW JOHN BROWN HANGED
COZ. WILLIAM FELLoWs was 4
GUARD AT TIE sCIFF0LD.


toNhs IN OThnRo RfONof IN inc San uhDTlei v N
10y in southern California. is ono Of tho few
persons now living who stood near to Johr
Brown OF osawatomie when he was hanged.
Il believe 1 am the last OF the guards about
John Brown and his associates in the Jail al
Charlestown." he says.
He was q near relative of Sheriff Campbell
who had charge Of Brown and seven of his
younger associate prisoners in the Charles
town Jail. Several years aRo he wrote out his
recollections Of John Brown in jail and on the
scaffold. but when It was finished he de-
stroyed the manuscript Col. Fellows served
three years in the Confederate army. and was
in Richmond at the time OF the surrender.
Il don't mind telling once more" said
Col Fellows to a Sun reporter, my reminis.
conces Of poor old John Brown during his last
days on earth. When 1 FIRST heard Of the
bloody affair at the engine house at Harper's
Ferry, in the middle'of October, 1853. nobody
probably denounced John Brown and his crazy
abolition followers moro than I did. 1t seemed
to me then that this shaggy bearded man. Brown.
wassabout as near q human fond as one could
be. Yet whom I came to be associated with
him / almost Immediately formed IN attach
ment for him, SO that to this day / have never
quite recovered from my personal sorrow at his
execution-legal and necessary though it may
have been. A handsome. promising young
cousin Of mine was killed in the militia charge
on the Harper's Ferry engine house, and that
made my resentment against Brown and his
men the moro intense. But later, in the
Charlestown Jail. John Browns fortitude, amid
pain from his wounds, his integrity. charity.
and simplicity Of character, his stern regard for
duty, his Spartan hrmness in the face Of over
whelming odds. and especially his modest BRAY.
cry appealed to me. Sheriff Campbell and all
the guards had a sympathy with our aged pris-
oner. and no real indignity was ever offered
John Brown by any one in jail. so far as / know
Notwithstanding the multitude of stories. In
all my experience in the war and in border life,
where one meets all sorts OF strange characters,
/ have never known any one so serene In the
midst OF frightful circumstances as was old
John Brown. He was truly a marvellous char
acter. As I look back now on the personality
Of the man, he seems to me to have been moro
like the heroes Of SCOTS 'Ivanhoe' and OF the
Crusades than any one I have ever known.
II was 25 years old in 1859, and was made one
Of the 800 guards about the Charlestown jail.
Immediately after John Brown and seven Of his
men-captured in the engine house in Harper's
Ferry-were brought to Charlestown. The
whole country was wildly excited. ! doubt IL
any event in the war that ragged through that
region for four years reused people like the in
cident at Harper's Ferry. Gov. Wise of vir-
ginia and thousands Of people in the South be-
lieved that John Brown and his men were en-
couraged and secretly hired by abolitionists,
like Wendell Phillips, Gerrit Smith, and Charles
Sumner in the North. and that the Blue Ridge
Mountains were teeming with anti-slavery
Northerners. who were watching for an oppor-
tunity to come down in force upon the Jail and
Eberate Brown and his associates. So a guard
Of 800 armed men was called out. But 1t was
seen later that there was no need for such a
force. and ] was chosen BY my uncle, Sheriff
Campbell, as one OF the half dozen day guards
inside the jail corridor. l am the only one now
living VIII was employed in tho jail at that
time. One Of Browns lawyers still lives in
Brooklyn, n. Y.
Il became an inside guard after the famous
trial at Charlestown, and when Browns execu-
tion was set for one month later-Dec. Q.
Brown occupied a cell with one of his captured
followers. q young man named Stevens, who
was executed with the other six prisoners a
month or six weeks after their CAPTAIN. When
1 went on duty in the jail John Brown was re-
covering from a severe scalp wound that he got
from a sabre in the hands of his captor at Har-
per's Ferry. / saw the constant pain the old
man was in and the clumsy way that he him.
self had to dress the wound, 30 / helped him..
brought fresh cloths daily and got him ONT
ment and warm water. For all of this he was
extremely grateful in his reserved Spartan. like
way. He was q proud. reserved man, and liked
to show his stoicism. One day when q guard
refused to give him q letter from his wife
thought John Brown would lose control Of him.
self and burst into passion, but he put his lips
together, and, showing his hands deep into his
pockets, walked into his cell. 1t was hours be-
fore he could compose himself. He never dis
played the least temper. although he certainly
had occasion to get angry every day, for he was
hated and disliked everywhere in that locality.
III no-ar phnUal H. 80
sional twitchinG of the face when he had n let
ter from his wife and children. As ali his let
tiers were. OF course. read by Sheriff Campbell. |
!, as one OF the family. saw some of them. Some
pressions OF love and tenderness that / have
seen the Sheriff wipe his eyes many a time
trayed distress. he read them over and over
and then would gaze into vacancy for hours
Brown was allowed to have two visitors a
day. and was always near when he chs:ted
served 4 in his MiS words sr = Bit ir Of resre ep for his hev Course oS,
EXCEPT that his son Oliver had been SO unneces.
sariiy exposed in the battle at the engine house
and was generally buried in thought or serious
reading. He was exact to a penny about his
God outside OF the regular jail fare without pay
ing for IL fully. Sums of money were sent him
delphia, but he never touched a penny Of IL.
He read for hours every day, and remember
p pr SSn nu.' cut SStAa away sne the nnehh, ea;vS as : @atses 81
covers from Browns hooks, fearing that fine steel
SAWS might be hidden therein.
"'Ah. MI. Sheriff said Capt. Brown quietly,
You little know me or my men. We, would
He was a daily reader OF the Bible, and morn.
ing and night he knelt In pray er in his cell. He
never talked ON religious topics, but he asked
the guards whom he liked to refrain from pro-
reading was Carlyle's Trench Revolution
Gibbons Rome and a biography Of Toussaint
the life OF that San DOMINICAN chief, and said
he put that. poor black man alongside Socrates,
Luther and John Hampden as the worlds
heroes. He said he had read and reread all the
he could find about L'Ouverture for
a dozen years. and l know that he patterned his
He after the San DOMINICAN and that he viewed
his own death on the scaffold in the same light
as the execution OF L'Ouvcrrure.
Tho morning of the executlon'dawned clear
and sunshiny. 1t was Dec. 2. and a mild, pleas
ant day. Capt. Brown asked me the evening
before TO come on guard at o o'clock instead OF
z, because he wanted to be liberated froIl his
narrow cell as early as convenient before his
to attend TO his last correspondence
The cell door was always opened for the day
when the day watch came ON duty. Brown was
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