| Notes |
- Barclay removed as a minor from Salem MM in Ohio to Upper Springfield MM (Iowa?) on 7/22/1843. His certificate was received on 8/23/1843. Barclay was the second brother to join John Brown at Harper's Ferry. He was assigned to guard the farmhouse where the party had been staying while the raid occurred, thus allowing him to escape from Harper's Ferry. (C-376, 1491) His fellow Quakers back in Springdale, Iowa kept vigilant watch for him. They guarded his mother's house to insure his safe return.
It took him about a month to travel on foot from Virginia to Iowa in a very ragged state, chased by Virginia agents. Barclay, with the help of his Quaker community, made it safely to his very worried mother's home. The local sherrif in Iowa didn't attempt his arrest however, as the community was so much against slavery, that he deemed it wisest not too. (C-1471) His fellow Quakers convinced Barclay for a time to go to Canada and then Ohio. He went back to Kansas in 1860 to help free some Missouri slaves and nearly lost his life a second time.
Fate did not have a long life in store for Barclay, as he joined the Civil War in 1861. On July 24, 1861, he was commissioned as a First Lieutenant in the Third Kansas Infantry, Colonel Montgomery's regiment. Six weeks later, he was on the train that collapsed on the Platte River Bridge due to fire damage from the Confederates. According to various accounts, he lived anywhere from one day after the collapse to several years as a prisoner where he died. In any case, he was buried in Leavenworth, Kansas, a place he had become fond of in the fall of 1865. (C-745, 1508, 2246)
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1839 - 1865 (26 years)
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