Absalom (Albert) Hazlett (1837-1860)
White Township, Indiana County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
A staunch abolitionist, Hazlett became a lieutenant in John Brown's provisional army and participated in the raid on Harper's Ferry Arsenal in 1859. He was captured, tried, convicted, and hanged for his involvement following the failed Harper's Ferry attack. This incident, intended to arm slaves to fight for their own freedom, was a major catalyst for the outbreak of the Civil War. Hazlett was born and raised near here.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Raised in the Indiana County countryside, Absalom Hazlett grew into a committed abolitionist and joined John Brown's small provisional army for the 1859 raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. The plan to arm enslaved people and spark their liberation collapsed, and Hazlett was captured, tried, and hanged for his part. Yet the raid electrified a divided nation and pushed it closer to open conflict.
Why it matters
Harpers Ferry was among the sparks that ignited the Civil War, and men like Hazlett embodied the willingness of white abolitionists to die alongside Brown for the end of slavery.
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Related people
- · Absalom (Albert) Hazlett
- · John Brown
Related events
- · Raid on Harpers Ferry (1859)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Jane Grey Swisshelm
Edgewood, PA · est. 1959
Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815–1884) lived and died at the homestead on this site, but her influence reached far beyond it. A fearless newspaper editor, she championed the abolition of slavery, women's rights, and temperance, and served as a nurse during the Civil War. She also chronicled her turbulent age in the memoir "Half a Century," writing at a time when few women held a public voice in American journalism.
The Rescue of Anthony Hollingsworth
Indiana, PA · est. 2002
In June 1845, slave hunters seized a twelve-year-old fugitive named Anthony Hollingsworth and held him in an Indiana, Pennsylvania hotel. Armed townspeople surrounded the building and demanded his release, openly defying the federal laws that protected slave catchers. Judge Thomas White then freed the boy in the courthouse that once stood on this site, a striking act of local conscience against the machinery of slavery.
Dr. Robert Mitchell (1786-1863)
Clymer, PA · est. 2007
Dr. Robert Mitchell of Indiana County was an outspoken abolitionist who, in September 1845, sheltered five people fleeing slavery on his property here. When bounty hunters raided, two escaped but three were dragged back into bondage—and Mitchell was tried, convicted, and financially ruined for violating the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. His case fed the national controversy that hardened into the harsher Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
Fugitive Slave Rescue
Blairsville, PA · est. 2004
In April 1858, with the Fugitive Slave Act empowering federal marshals and Southern slave-catchers to reach deep into the free states, the people of Blairsville acted. They rescued a man named Newman from arrest, and local Black abolitionist Lewis Johnson—a conductor on the Underground Railroad—sheltered him. Indiana County had long been an important station on the secret routes north.