The Marlborough
Historical Society

On September 26, 2011, on the 150th anniversary of the taking of the John Brown Bell, Paul Brodeur, a Marlborough Historical Society Trustee, and Alan Chamberlain, Historical Society member and Civil War reenactor, gave a presentation to the Society that covered this period of rabid abolition in Marlboro, the formation of the fire department that helped staff and motivate Co. I of the Mass 13th, and their movements into Harpers Ferry and beyond.

In the program they also described the untold story of the dramatic players in the story of the bell. Not only the soldiers, but the slaves of Harpers Ferry who had been neighbors to the Bell from their position at the Harpers Ferry Wager Hotel and came to Marlboro at the invitation of the Marlboro soldiers. 

The presentation was based in part on Brad Forbush’s 13th Regiment website, long time Historical Society member Joan Abshire's publication on the John Brown Bell and its many connections to Marlborough, Silas Felton’s two volumes of local history, and the newspaper research of Kathy Lizotte Lynde.