Year: 1869

"A l0SC WOrO Is peTtuiGtcu a1waES Ou-
der the gallows. The town of Charles
town. Virginia, in its puny self has its
significance sometimes forgotten to be
marked upon the map by an exceeding
ly small dot.


The crab, biting Hercules on the heel.
became a constellation. This wretched
Virginia village, slaying John Brown,
had the fortune to be lifted out Of Geog.
raphy into History.


Arriving here this morning, sought
out the most vivid recollections con-
cerning its great event. and went into
the carriage shop of w ] Hawks, who
furnished the hero With cartto convey
him to the gallows. and a coffin to
bring him away from it. Hawks told
me that he himself was not present at
the execution, but that most of his
neighbors were, and on the moment the
shop door opened. and there entered
tough skinned butcher-like looking Vir-
ginian, with jaws heavy and firm as
mastiff's, and the coffin-maker address.
him:


Captain, here is gentleman who
wants to know something about John
Brown. You car tell him.
Yes. sir, think seen about John
Browns last kick


He was hung right over there on the
hill,' added the Captain, and the old
man was pluck to the 'ast, and seemed
| to care less about it than any Of the
rest of u.s.


is there any thing marking the place
of the gaIlow-?' asked


Nothing at all. sir, now, I guess
| There was stump of the tree standing
just on one side of the platform. but the
Federal soldiers in the war dug out the
last splinter of the roots and carried it
all away


Where are the platform and gall
lows?'


| ooh. they got them too. They were
piled ur over by the courthouse there;
but the soldiers cut the timber up into
canes no longer than your arm. and
when that was all gone, they hacked
awey on every beam and log about town
here, and carried 'em off just the same


l went to where the Captain pointed
on the hill over the town to find the
epot of the gallows. Ga the way up
the open lane out Of the village, I met
tell what they knew Of it. The people
of Charlestown have become SO used to
answering inquiries about John Brown
they expect them 10 be included in their
catechism at the resurrection.


A negro coming down the lane said:
Mister, you will find it just over there
between the four cornsbocks, though /
don't see that you can see any symp-
toms of it,


Perhaps the best symptoms to be
seen of John Brown hanging now, is
Virginia negro who talks better En-
glish than his old masters.


On the day of the execution not a ne
gro dared allow him self to be seen
around the village. The slaves were
guarded strictly at home Upon every
farm and plantation for fifty miles
around. hard visaged overseers, with re-
volvers N their belts, and rifles in hand
from dawn till twilight walked nervous
ly up and down, keeping vigilant watch
against servile insurrection.


On knoll in great open field COW
cred with quartz rock, where the ripe
corn stands now in thick shocks, 1
found the spot designated by common
consent here, as having been marked
on the I'd Of December, 1859, by the
scaffold of John Brown. No other man
passing from the gallows into eterni-
ty, ever cast his last look from the world
upon such magnificent panorama of
nature as lay around this scaffold. The
beauty of the earth as on that fair,
soft December noon it shone in on his
sight over the Blue Ridge mists, might
have unnamed, think, at the last mo-
ment, any man who had had lower than
martyrs purpose for his deed But
John Browns was an unf1edged fancy,
and his imagination hard one, lending
itself to only human sentiments. But
l hn oiI 70 h 10 ioi1 1o :.
hill: This is : beautiful country. I
have never noticed it before From
the spot of the scaffold, on the ridge of
plowed field, the country dips away
into the valley Of superb picture--a
sweep of wild fields, broken into vistas
by ribs of rnountsins here and there,
pitched up through the soil, and bear
ing fringes Of forest. On the edge of
this landscape, five n lies away, glides
the Shenandoah river, and around that
lifts and sweeps the magnificent crest
of the Blue Ridge, closing the vision
under thirty miles of eastern sky That
vision, beyond the gaudy mill ary pa
rade at his feet, caught at last John
Browns eye before he dropped from the
scaffold


4 am told that you all down here
thought John Brown very brave on the
day OF the hanging; did he show no fear
, whatever?' l asked Of citizen who
pointed us on the way TO the place.
Not bit Of it, sir, as any of us could
see. He seemed not to care much
about it any way, and rode up here in
his slippers from the Jail with Captain
Avis, his legs crossed and his eye cock
ed at the sky, as If he saw nobody. and
then he mounted the steps without
Avis's help, and Made very good i'm
preston on our people all around
Avis was Browns jailor, who treated
him with such consideration during his
imprisonment that almost his last words
on the scaffold were thanking him for
it.


Brown spent all the morning of his
death as he had spent the most of his
J imprisonment before, in writing letters
to his friends. When arrangements for