Barclay Coppoc: Iowa Time Machine December 17, 1859

Iowa Time Machine ⏰: On December 17, 1859, Barclay Coopock returned to Iowa after participating in John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry. An ardent abolitionist, Coopock escaped punishment for the raid with the help of Iowa Governor Samuel Kirkwood.

Edwin and Barclay Coppock were born of Quaker parentage in Winona, Ohio, near the intensely abolitionist town of Salem. As teenagers, they moved to Springdale, Iowa, where their mother was living. It was here that they met John Brown as he passed through in early 1859, transporting people who had been enslaved in Missouri to freedom. That summer, the two boys bade their mother goodbye, despite her fears of the violence they would encounter, and traveled to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, to meet Brown's growing army.

For his participation in John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Edwin was tried and convicted of treason, murder, and fomenting a slave insurrection. He was hanged in Charles Town, Virginia (now West Virginia). Barclay, like Owen Brown and Francis Jackson Meriam, did not enter Harpers Ferry; they remained at the Kennedy Farm guarding the weapons. When it became clear that the raid was failing, they escaped northward after much difficulty reaching John Brown, Jr.'s house in Ashtabula County, Ohio. Barclay continued to Canada before ultimately returning to his mother’s house in Springdale, Iowa.

On January 23, 1860, about three months after the Harpers Ferry raid, Iowa governor Samuel Kirkwood received from the governor of Virginia a requisition "for one Barclay Coppock, reputed to be a fugitive from the justice of Virginia." Kirkwood found the requisition deficient in legal form and returned it to Virginia. Barclay was gone to Canada by the time Kirkwood received the corrected papers. Barclay later joined the Union Army during the American Civil War and served as a recruiting officer. He was killed in action when Confederate sabotage derailed his train over the Platte River. #IowaOTD #IowaHistoryDaily #IowaHistoryCalendar