Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1911-06-03
JOHN BROWN BELL
Now Hangs at the Entrance of Grand
Army Hall, Marlboro,
Mass.


can tell first-person story of the
thirty years burial OF the historic
John Brown bell, after it was cut
down from the engi1e-house barri.
cade at Harper's Ferry, w. Va, by
Bay State bluecoats.
One is Lauraman Russell, of Win
throp, who is hale and hearty, and
who has just passed his min stieth
birthday. OF the coterie of a dozen or
more soldiers who crossed the Po-
tomac from Maryland to Virginia one
sunshiay fall morning in 1861, stop
ped at store to buy stout rope,
and then cla-nbered to the roof of the
engine-house, where they laid loving
hands upon the rain-stained bell that
was to have changed liberty to the
slaves of Virginia, Mr.. Russell and
Lysander p Parker, of Marlboro, are
the only two who can tell their de-
scendants all about the thirty years
mystery.
The bell now hangs at the entrance
of the Grand Army Hall, in Marlboro.
Nineteen years ago heavy box came
to the city from Williamsport, Md. 1t
was pried open with reverent hands.
That was the first sight human eyes
had had of the bell since it was law
full to hold slaves, with the exception
of the six soldiers who expressed II
from the South.
"How did the bell get there?'
That question was easier by far to
answer than the question that had
been buzzing for three decades.
Where was the John Brown bell?''
In the early COS feeling ran Sc
high in Maryland that the sight of a
memory-fraught relic of the beginning
of the struggle would have spilled
blood. The John Brown bell, there
fore, disappeared.
1t was in the possession Of Compa.
ny | of the Massachusetts Volunteer
Militia, who were encamped about six
miles up the Potomac in the fall OF
1861. A dozen of the soldiers had
climbed the belfry at Harper's Ferry
That much was known by every man
woman, and child along the river.
They also knew that when the com
pany received orders to rejoin its reg
iment at Williamsport, the scowtlike
canalboat, Charles McCardell, bearing
heavy square box. was towed UP the
river too.
But that is all that they knew
Query as they could through the war
days and for thirty years afterward,
they never caught sight of the square
box that the bluecoats guarded with
their lives, or found its hiding place.
until 1892 its secret was blocked il
the heart of one person. And that
person was woman.
Inviolate, Mrs. William Ensminger
who baked the bread for the company
when it was encamped at Williams
port at the beginning of the war, kept
tie mystery until six of her soldiers
came back to her thirty years after
ward. Though she smiled as she lean
ed across her garden fence and gos-
siped with her neighbor about the dis
appearance of the much-talked-of
relic, she smiled a second time in her
heart to remember that the John
Brown bell was resting under her YER
beIas not twenty feet away. When
the volunteers marched away from
the town Mrs. Ensminger buried the
hell for them, promising to guard its
secret until they came back.
Thirty years she waited, and then
caly nine of the original fifteen who
had been interested in procuring the
hell were alive to ask for it. Before
the war was over seven had been
killed in various battles.
Mr. Russell smiled remiscently in
mis- home, at Winthrop, where small
silken flag hangs above his book table,
when he is asked abut the John
Brown bell. With the exception of
his comrade in Marlboro, he is the
only living link to the series of I'M
usual events connected with the final
chapter in the small steel bells
strange history.-Boston Herald.