JOHN BROWN'S BODY, AND TEN OTHERS, LIE A-MOULDERING IN THEIR GRAVES
HERE'S HOW THEY GOT THERE!
FROM THE AUSABLE FORKS RECORD-POST 1902
In 1899, a large but ordinary trunk arrived in Saranac Lake
village at the home of Miss Katherine E. McClellan. It contained
the bodies of eight men — killed at Harper's Ferry 43 years before.
The story of John Brown at North Elba and his burial is a
familiar one. Little known to the general public, however, is another
interesting story of the sending and arrival of the trunk.
Miss McClellan at the time operated a photographic studio in
Saranac Lake. She was widely known for her pictures of Adirondack
scenery. Her name was often associated with John Brown's
farm through her illustrated sketch of Brown, which was on sale at the
farm for a number of years. It was through this association
with the place that led to her receiving a letter from an utter
stranger who revealed to her the rather startling plan to exhume
the bones of several of John Brown's followers and have them
brought to North Elba to be buried beside their leader.
-----------------------------NOTE: In 1896 McClellan wrote "A Hero's Grave in the Adirondacks", which was about John Brown's life and death, and so
apparently she seemed a proper person to interest in moving the remains
of Brown's men to North Elba.
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The stranger was Dr. Thomas Featherstonhaugh of Washington,
D. C. He pleaded with Miss McClellan that he could not leave
Washington, and begged her to carry out his scheme at this end.
For the moment Miss McClellan was enthusiastic, not realizing the
responsibilities she would assume in agreeing to be a partner. After
consenting, however, she carried out the plans successfully.
Of the 22 men who took part in the Harper's Ferry attack, seven
escaped, and ten were killed. Two of the bodies of the last group were
given to a medical college for dissection. The other eight bodies were
interred in two large, crude boxes on a bank of the Shenandoah River,
a short distance from Harper's. It is the bones of these eight
men that Dr. Featherstonhaugh recovered and sent in the trunk,
accompanied by a confidential agent, to Miss McClellan.
The bodies were disinterred on July 29, 1899 by Featherstonhaugh, a Captain Hall of Washington,
and Professor Libby of the
University of Wisconsin. Libby
later turned out to be the agent
who brought the mysterious trunk
to Saranac Lake.
Dr. Featherstonhaugh felt that
the identity of the bodies was beyond
questioning, owing to the
fact that James Mansfield of Harper's
Ferry, who was paid five
dollars to bury them, was hired
by the three men to dig them up.
Their correct identity was further
assured by the remote spot at
which they were buried, and by the
unusual boxes in which they were
buried.
The boxes were found to be in
a fair state of preservation. Inside
these rough boxes, much of
the clothing was found to be preserved,
especially parts of coats
and vests with the buttons still attached.
In a pocket were found two
short lead pencils, sharpened for
use.
Also there were some woolen
fibres in abundance which indicated
that the men had been buried
in blanket shawls — shawls in
which they had fought. Records
show that the men had been made
a gift of these garments a few
days before the raid.
The small bones of the bodies
had completely mouldered away,
but the larger ones were intact
for the most part.
The greatest secrecy was necessary
in the shipment and arrival
of the remains. They had been
taken from the grave without the
consent of knowledge of anyone,
except for the owner of the land
in which they were burried. Dr.
Featherstonhaugh, his aides, and
Miss McClellan worked with a
constant fear of discovery and interference
by the authorities.
At the last moment, a man in
Massachusetts heard of what was
going on and asked permission to
send on the bones of an uncle
and a companion who had been
caught and hanged as an outcome
of the raid, and who had been
buried at Perth Amboy. N. J.
These made a total of ten bodies
sent to Saranac Lake.
Miss McClellan hid the bodies
in her house on Old Military Road
during the entire month of August.
The exact house has not
been determined Miss McClellan owned three houses on that
street.
---------------------------NOTE: Miss McClellan lived at 22 Old Military Road.------------------------
During this period she persuaded the Town
to furnish a handsome casket in
which the bones of all ten men
were eventually placed.
The men were buried at North
Elba on August 30, 1899, the
final episode that began in
Harper's Ferry nearly a half century ago.
The names of the people who exhumed these remains are:
Capt. E, P. Hall of Washington,
and Prof. X G. Libby, of the university
of Wisconsin, who is a nephew of
C. P. Tidd, one of the seven who escaped
after the fray. The names of
those buried are as follows (negroes
marked with an asterisk. Two negroes
were hanged at Charlestown),
Greene and Copeland, Watson Brown,
Oliver Brown, William Thompson,
Dauphin Osgood Thompson, Stewart, Taylor, John H. Kagi, Jeremiah, G.j. Anderson, William H. Leeman, *Dangerfield Newby, *Lewis S. Leary, killed in the Harper's Ferry fight; Aaron D. Stevens and Albert Haiett,
hanged, but remains buried at North Elba. These last two were hanged with John
Brown.
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Note: Katherine McClellan's father was Dr. Ezra S. McClellan, who developed Highland Park (Park Avenue section) and put together the sanitation code for Saranac Lake. Katherine Elizabeth McClellan (1859-1934) was born and raised in Paterson, New Jersey. After graduating from Smith College in 1882 she worked for eight years in private schools and as a tutor in New York and New Jersey. Her career as a photographer began in the Adirondacks in 1892 when the McClellan family moved to Saranac Lake, NY so that Katherine's sister could be treated for tuberculosis at the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium. Katherine McClellan took up photography as a hobby, concentrating on landscapes. She turned her hobby into a thriving business. In addition to selling her photographs, McClellan also published two viewbooks, John Brown, or A Hero's Grave in the Adirondacks (1896) and Keene Valley: "In the Heart of the Mountains" (1898), and planned two more Saranac Lake and Lake Placid. It is not known whether these two were ever completed.
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Another interesting Saranac Lake footnote:
Pat Fina built and operated the RIVERSIDE GRILL in 1942. He found a rifle buried in an old cellar on his property while constructing it.
