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Militaria and Political Auction
Lot 1264:
John Brown Coat Swatch Which Became Tangled with Noose. CAG Encapsulated.Swatch, .5" x .375", Charles Town, Virginia, December 2, 1859. The relic was recovered by Captain Richard Adams after the abolitionist’s hanging. Encapsulated by CAG, measuring 2.375” x 3.375”. After Brown was declared dead at 11:50 am, his body was placed into a black walnut coffin, with the noose still around his neck. Sometime during the transfer of the body, Brown’s black frock coat became tangled with the heavy noose. A portion of the swatches that became entangled are included in this rare and unique relic. The provenance reads: "John Brown (Osawatomie) Pieces of his coat and rope with which he was hung, coffin in which he was first put in after he was hung at Charlestown, VA Dec 2, 1859 Pres by Capt Richard Adams 1860".John Brown was charged with inciting a slave insurrection, murder, and treason following his abortive raid of the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. He was sentenced to an execution witnessed by thousands of military cadets and faculty from the nearby Virginia Military Institute. Coincidentally, both Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson and John Wilkes Booth observed the execution.Brown was hanged at 11:15 am. Eyewitnesses John T.L. Preston and "Stonewall" Jackson reported that after the rope securing the trapdoor was severed, Brown’s body dropped between 25-36" inches. Brown did not die immediately, instead "growing feebler and feebler at each abortive attempt to breathe. His knees were scarcely bent, his arms were drawn up at a right angle at the elbow, with the hands clenched; but there was no writhing of the body, no violent heaving of the chest", as Preston recalled in a December 15, 1859 letter to his wife.
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