OPPOC THE REFUGEE In coming to Davenport Barclay Coppoc was coming among friends he had made while serving as clerk in local stores.  After evading the extradition papers of Governor Wise of Virginia this young man enlisted in the war for the union and early in the struggle fell a victim to Missouri bushwhackers.  He was killed with other soldiers in the wreck of a train which went through a bridge which had been weakened by incediary fire. Colonel Wm. Penn Clark, formerly of Davenport, wrote a letter to the Des Moines Register in which he tells of a trip he made in March, 1859, from West Liberty to Davenport with John Brown and party who were taking twelve slaves captured in Missouri to freedom.  A freight car containing the slaves was attached to the train and placed directly back of the engine.  In this car were Brown and others of his adherents, all strongly armed.  Kagi, the writer and orator of the Brown movement, accompanied Col. Clark into a passenger coach to keep an eye on a man who had threatened to reveal to the United States officers the character of the freight in the car attached to the train when the train should reach Davenport.  It was the purpose of Clark and Kagi to overawe and keep this man quiet during the short stay the train made in this city.  Col. Clark says in his letter, "And this we did.  Kagi was thoroughly armed, as were all the white men with Brown, and the party could not have been arrested without bloodshed.  The conductor of the passenger train was a man named Jones, an Englishman, who, I believe, is dead.  He was in sympathy with the movement, and who knew how anxious I was to get the fugitives safely out of Iowa.  From a window of the old Burtis House I watched the train crossing the bridge over the Mississippi and felt greatly relieved when the train started on its journey to Chicago, where the negroes were safely landed the next morning." While the train stopped here Laurel Summers, United States marshal with a strong posse searched the passenger cars, but did not examine the freight car on the rear of the train.  At Chicago Allan Pinkerton, the famous detective, conducted the slaves to a waiting car which took them safely to Canada. Debbie Clough G-erischer G-erischer Family Web Site http://gerischer.rootsweb.com/ Assistant CC, Iowa Gen Web, Scott County http://www.celticcousins.net/scott/ List Manager for: IASCOTT-L * G-erischer-L * D-encker-L Fitzpatirck-L * V-lerebome-L * Huntington-L * Otis-L * Algar-L EIGS-L * Pickens-L * McNab-L * Patris-L - Rankin-L