Ohio History: The Scholarly Journal of the Ohio Historical Society
The Coffin of Edwin Coppock
by THOMAS C. MENDENHALL
Volume 30
There has recently been added to the collection of John Brown relics in the museum of The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society another concerning which I have been requested to tell the following story:
On the morning of the tenth of April, 1865, I left my room which was over the Farmers' National Bank on Main Street, Salem, Ohio, intending to proceed to the High School, in which I was a teacher. But I did not see the inside of a school room that day.
Groups of people were forming at every corner and I soon learned that news had been received of the surrender of Lee to General Grant, the long looked-forclimax of the Civil War. This event was of far greater importance to the people of the United States than was that of the armistice at the end of the recent European war, and the joy with which it was greeted was far greater than that exhibited on the latter occasion.
There were many reasons why the town of Salem, Ohio, should be more jubilant over the end of the struggle than most communities. For many years it had been the center of activity of the anti-slavery forces west of the Allegheny mountains, the headquarters of the Western Anti-Slavery Society, as Boston was of the New England Anti-Slavery Society. Out of it, during many years, had gone the weekly issue of the Anti-Slavery Bugle (the organ of The Western Society, as Garrison's Liberator was of that of New England) from which many a powerful and far-reaching "Blast for Freedom" had come. Its town hall had resounded with eloquence of the most famous expounders of the anti-slavery doctrine, including William Lloyd Garrison, Fred Douglas, Wendell Phillips, Parker Pillsbury, Abby Kelley, "Sojourner Truth" (illiterate but inspired negro-slave woman orator) and many others. It was the "Faneuil Hall" of the West.
Some of the people of Salem had suffered, some to the extent of being "tarred and feathered", because of their activity in an unpopular cause, and in its cemetery was the tomb of Edwin Coppock, who was one of John Brown's men, hanged at Harper's Ferry, December 16, 1859. The body of this martyr to the anti-slavery cause was sent to the home of his relatives living near New Garden (a few miles south of Salem) [now named Winona-RWT]and on December 18 it was buried in the cemetery* of that small village, in the presence of as many as two thousand witnesses, including practically the entire population within a radius of a few miles.
A few days later a "call" was issued, printed on thin blue paper about eight inches by five inches in dimensions, signed by twenty-four leading citizens of Salem, of which the following is a copy:FUNERAL
OF
EDWIN COPPOCK
The friends of Edwin Coppock and of the great principles of freedom for which HE sacrificed his life, and to advance which he suffered martyrdom, being desirous of showing proper respect to his memory have obtained his remains from his relatives, and have made arrangements to inter the body in the cemetery in
SALEM, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1859.
To meet at the TOWN HALL at 1 o'clock P. M. All the friends of JUSTICE, LIBERTY and HUMANITY are invited to attend and participate in these solemn rites.
R. H. GARRIGUES
DANIEL BONSALL
JACOB HEATON
ISAAC TRESCOTT
OLIVER MILLER
JOHN FAWCETT
J. K. RUKENBROD
ISAAC SNIDER
T. E. VICKERS
W. P. WEST
JOHN MCLERAN
A. BRADFIELD
JOHN HUDSON
C. H. GARRIGUES
JAMES WHINERY
ELIJA WHINERY
ALLEN BOYLE
EDWARD GIBBONS
JOEL MCMILLAN
J. C. WHINERY
SAMUEL BRUBAKER
A. WRIGHT
SAM'L D. HAWLEY
J. M. BROWN
In response to this call thousands of visitors from all parts of Northeastern Ohio came to Salem on the day announced and the body of the martyr, after being transferred from the rude coffin in which it had been sent from Harper's Ferry, to a fine metallic casket, was buried in Hope Cemetery where it has since rested beneath a shaft of sandstone on which the only inscription is the name "Edwin Coppock".
While enthusiasm over the "end of the war" grew rapidly on the streets of Salem on the morning of April 10th, there was little organization for its expression and little was needed. The mayor of the town, however, issued a proclamation requesting all persons to close their places of business, to give up the day to general rejoicing and to illuminate their dwellings at night.
A meeting was held in the historic town hall and within a few hours practically the entire population of the town, numbering at that time about three thousand, was upon the streets, bent on giving voice to the joy which was in their hearts. Only a little more than five years had elapsed since the body of Coppock had been received in Salem, at which time it had seemed to many that the miserable failure of John Brown's venture had postponed indefinitely the freedom of the slave.
The historic value of the rude box in which it had come had been recognized by Dr. J. C. Whinnery,* and he had preserved it in the attic of the building in which his offices were located. This fact was known to the writer of these lines and with the assistance of three others (young men) it was brought down and an effigy of General Lee was placed in it. It had not been forgotten that it was General Lee who commanded the marines who broke into the Fort at Harper's Ferry, who prevented the escape of Edwin Coppock and were thus immediately responsible for his death. With this upon their shoulders they came out upon the street and in an incredibly short time they were marching at the head of a procession numbering more than a thousand people, all shouting the refrain of that great war hymn:
"John Brown's body lies moldering in his grave, His soul goes marching on."
*Whinnery is the correct spelling. The name is misspelled in the handbill.
With this song of triumph as they marched, the streets of the unusually quiet old Quaker town were made to ring as never before and never since, and it is doubtful if there was anywhere in the country, on that memorable day a more vivid illustration of the rapid march of events during those half dozen fateful years.
At the death of Dr. Whinnery many years later, this interesting relic came into the possession of his daughter, Mrs. Gertrude Whinnery Richards, to whom The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society is greatly indebted for its transfer to the Society's museum at Columbus, where it will continue to be an object of great interest to the thousands who annually visit this very remarkable collection of articles and documents, mostly related to the history of our own state. And it will help to keep alive in the minds and thoughts of these thousands, some knowledge and veneration for the men and women of that heroic period.
The Society is also much indebted to Mrs. Annie Boyle Gilbert, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for the original of the call to the Coppock funeral to which the name of her father, Allen Boyle, is attached.