Existing comment:
Mayor Fontaine Beckham Memorial Room:
This room is dedicated to the memory of Harpers Ferry Mayor Fontaine Beckham, killed on October 17, 1859, during the John Brown Raid on the Harpers Ferry Federal Armory and Arsenal.
Mayor Beckham was a well-liked, distinguished lawyer, magistrate, entrepreneur and public servant in Jefferson County, Virginia. For twenty five years he was the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad agent until his untimely death.
The Events Unfolded as Follows:
Harpers Ferry Mayor Fontaine Beckham's day began innocuously. He dressed and proceeded down High Street. The commotion in the Town had aroused him. Citizens urged him to do something. A bullet that mortally wounded his friend and railroad baggage master, Heyward Shepherd, caused him to proceed to the B&O Railroad station where the tall free black man lay dying on the blood-soaked loading platform. The mayor, concerned for the safety of his town and citizens, periodically checked on his dying co-worker. Shepherd was the first person to die in the Raid. Beckham, unarmed, was thought to be a sniper by Edwin Coppoc. Beckham had initially confined himself to the B&O ticket office. However, he climbed the railroad trestle and looked around the town water tank. Coppoc fired his Sharp's rifle from the engine house (John Brown's fort). A bullet entered Beckham's brain ending his life. John Brown would later be charged with his murder.
Mayor Beckham is buried in Edge Hill Cemetery in Charles Town, West Virginia ...
October 10, 2009
John Brown Raid Sesquicentennial |