If I Had Ten Thousand Lives

Albert Hazlett, one of John Brown’s raiders was executed March 16^th 1860, even though he wasn’t with Brown during the Harper’s Ferry raid.

Albert Hazlett was born September 21^st 1837 in Pennsylvania.  He worked on his brother’s farm in Pennsylvania, before moving to Kansas.  He was described as a good sized and fine looking man.

Hazlett wasn’t with John Brown on the morning of October 18^th 1859 when Robert E Lee and a company of United States Marines brought an end to Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry.  Hazlett and another man; Osborne Anderson left Harpers Ferry the night before undetected.  The two men headed north into Pennsylvania.  Hazlett, who assumed the name William Harrison, was arrested October 22^nd 1859 in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.  He was brought before a judge in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, but was unable to convince the judge that they had the wrong person.  The judge ruled that while “there is no evidence that we have any man in our custody named Albert Hazlett, we are satisfied that a monstrous crime has been committed [and] that the prisoner…participated in it.”  Hazlett was sent back to Charlestown, Virginia for trail.

He was found guilty.  Hazlett was executed March 16^th 1860.  The night before his execution Hazlett wrote to a Mrs. Rebecca Spring, that it gives “me great comfort to know that my body would be taken from this land of chains.... I am willing to die in the cause of liberty, if I had ten thousand lives I would willingly lay them all down for the same cause."