Barclay Coppoc (Ohio State Historical and Archeological Society)

Along with his older brother, Edwin, Barclay was deeply interested in John Brown and his plans, much impressed with the two visits of the old warrior in Springdale, and finally joined the party at Harper's Ferry. While Edwin was commissioned lieutenant, Barclay remained a private. The latter was afflicted with asthma and apparently not sufficiently vigorous to stand up under long continued and arduous physical exertion. For this reason, it is said, he was left on guard at the Kennedy Farm when John Brown and nineteen of his men left on the fateful night of October 16, 1859, to attack Harper's Ferry.

With him were left on guard Owen Brown, son of John Brown, and Francis J. Merriam, a member of the wealthy Merriam family of Massachusetts, whose opposition to slavery led him to join in the movement at Harper's Ferry. Owen had direction of the little party of three who had been instructed by his father to take the arms from the Kennedy house to a school house about one mile from the Ferry, or direct to the Ferry itself, depending upon where they could be used to the best advantage.