For sale: Hanging site of John Brown in Charles Town, W.Va.

John Brown was hanged in what now is the yard of this Victorian mansion in Charles Town, W.Va.

                Click on image for full-screen interactive panorama of Brown hanging site.

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A "gentle haze" hung in the air at high noon Dec. 2, 1859, as roughly 1,500 people, mostly military men and cadets, gathered in a large, vacant field in Charles Town, Va. 

VMI professor Thomas J. Jackson, who two years later would be better known as Confederate General "Stonewall" Jackson, stood among the crowd. So did famous actor John Wilkes Booth. Six years later, he would become infamous for shooting the president in the back of the head with a Deringer pistol. John Brown, the fiery 59-year-old abolitionist leader, attended the event, too, but not of his own volition.

John Brown, about 1856.

One month after his conviction for treason for an ill-fated raid on the Federal arsensal at Harpers Ferry, Va., Brown appeared for his execution by hanging.

Jackson wrote that Brown wore carpet slippers, white socks, black pants, a black frock coat and vest and a black slouch hat and "behaved with unflinching firmness." His hands tied behind him, Brown ascended the gallows with "apparent cheerfulness," according to the professor, who was "much impressed with the thought that before me stood a man, in the full vigor of health, who must in a few minutes be in eternity." 

Another witness, John L. Preston, a founder of Virginia Military Institute, described the somber scene as well as the final moments of the Connecticut-born Brown's life after his body dropped from the gallows:

"There was profound stillness during the time his struggles continued, growing feebler and feebler at each abortive attempt to breathe. He knees were scarcely bent, his arms were drawn up to a right angle at the elbow, with the hands clenched; but there was no writhing of the body, no violent heaving of the chest. At each feebler effort at respiration his arms sank lower, and his legs hung more relaxed, until at last, straight and lank he dangled, swayed to and fro by the wind.

"It was a moment of deep solemnity, and suggestive of thoughts that make the bosom swell. The field of execution was a rising ground, and commanded the outstretching valley from mountain to mountain, and their still grandeur gave sublimity to the outline, while it so chanced that white clouds resting upon them, gave them the appearance that reminded more than one of us of the snow peaks of the Alps."

Today, the execution site looks nothing like it did in 1859. Impressive, old houses dominate the tree-lined street, blocks from the still-active Jefferson County Courthouse where a court passed judgment on Brown. The site of the gallows where a crowd watched Brown stand "upright as a soldier in position" before his execution is in the yard of a 7,000-square foot Victorian mansion that's on the market. Asking price: $749,000.

John Gibson built the five-bedroom, 6 1/2-bath home at 515 South Samuel in 1891. Thirty-two years earlier, he had commanded troops who battled Brown and his band of escaped slaves and renegades at Harpers Ferry. 

The red-brick house features Tiffany windows, Waterford chandeliers, French-laid fireplaces, a gourmet kitchen, a roof deck, a 9-foot claw foot tub and rooms with 19-foot ceilings. It's listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The one-acre property also includes an ornamental wrought-iron fence, a barn, in-ground pool and a gazebo.

There's no mention in the listing if the ghost of John Brown, whose body the wind blew to and fro after his hanging, lingers on the property.

A section of  the ornamental fence that surrounds the area where Brown was hanged.

Abolitionist leader John Brown was convicted of treason at Jefferson County Courthouse in
Charles Town, Va.  (now West Virginia) on Nov. 2, 1859. The courthouse is still in use.

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