It seems as natural as maple sap flowing in the Adirondack spring for John Brown’s body to be amouldering in the grave near Lake Placid. But according to 19th-century photographer and guidebook author Seneca Ray Stoddard, bodies in the North Country were usually left “exposed to the pure balsamic air and, in the course of six or seven weeks, they moss over.” The body of John Brown, the fiery abolitionist who was hanged after his ill-fated raid on Harpers Ferry, was buried only “as a protection against curiosity hunters.” That tomfoolery had some unintended truth: attempts were made to dig up his corpse and carry it away. Northern friends and Virginian foes tried to exploit John Brown’s body—even before he was dead.
A Boston abolitionist wanted Brown to give his body to the Anti-Slavery Society so money could
