Thursday May 19, 2022 was get-away day for myself, my photographer, and our friend Bob Moldenhauer. We had spent the better part of six days in and around Washington D.C. and it was time to begin the long journey back to Michigan. But with two full days left to see sights, there was no way in heck my travel companions planned to drive non-stop all the way home.
Tom’s alarm rang at 5:50am; shortly after that my photographer and Mongo had the Jeep packed and we were on the road. My companions had hoped to get past the Washington metro area before the morning traffic got too hectic. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. As we headed north along the George Washington Parkway, which was the route our Siri GPS had suggested, we got bogged down in a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam. From my position inside the camera bag on the back seat, I laughed at my photographer when I heard him cuss at Siri for guiding us along that horrible route out of Washington. But it might not have been her fault. After Siri had already chosen the fastest route out of D.C, a small work crew had assembled along the parkway to clean out some of the sewers. While the logjam of cars likely happened within a few minutes; that untimely crew cost us nearly 30 minutes.
After Tom had driven the Jeep past the bottle neck, the rest of the 60-mile journey to Harpers Ferry, West Virgina was a breeze. We rolled into the historic town around nine o’clock, and a few minutes later, I found myself posing for photos at an old brick firehouse – known today as ‘John Brown’s Fort’. The small one-story fire-engine house was built in 1848 and was once part of the Harpers Ferry Armory complex. But it was a three-day insurrection by abolitionist John Brown and a band of his followers, however, that put the armory on the map.
On October 16, 1859, John Brown arrived in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (the state became West Virginia in 1863) to start a slave revolt by taking over the United States arsenal located in that town. After Brown’s raiders cut the telegraph wires and took control of both bridges, the abolitionists nabbed ten hostages and held them inside the fire house. One of the hostages was Colonel Lewis William Washington, the great grandnephew of George Washington. By 7am the following day, word of the insurrection spread, and townspeople started to fire weapons at Brown’s raiders. Three hours later, the militia had arrived, and the first raider was killed. More of Brown’s men were struck down by early afternoon, and most of the hostages were freed. By nightfall of October 17th, Colonel Robert E. Lee and 90 U.S. Marines arrived in Harpers Ferry and things looked bleak for the insurrectionists. When John Brown refused to surrender at 7am on October 18, 1859, the Marines stormed the fire house, and all hell broke loose. When the smoke cleared, 16 men were killed, including ten of John Brown’s raiders. Brown was captured, along with four of his men, and they were taken to nearby Charles Town and thrown in the slammer. Although the entire ordeal lasted only about 36 hours, it became known as the “Tragic Prelude to the Civil War”.
The three of us walked inside and all around the exterior of the small brick firehouse, and at times, I posed for several images where the insurrection had taken place. During my entire visit inside that building, I thought about the bravery and the passion of John Brown. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not a supporter of any type of insurrection with hostages, but Brown was left with no choice in his attempt to end the evils of slavery. Nobody else was doing a darn thing. President James Buchanan hid inside the White House and was useless in finding a peaceful or practical solution to the growing problem of slavery in our country. So, with no end to slavery in sight, Brown felt the need to take matters into his own hands – and it cost him his life and the lives of two of his sons. My life was in danger inside the firehouse as well; my head was still not secured to my body. One wrong move, or if the wind blew just right, my life, as I knew it, would be over.
Following our self-guided tour of John Brown’s Fort, Tom and Bob walked into Maryland (the West Virgina-Maryland border was roughly 100 feet east of the fort) and we crossed the Potomac River via the Winchester & Potomac Railroad Bridge which contained a footpath that was part of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail. From the bridge, we had a scenic view of the Potomac and Shenandoah River confluence, as well as the beautiful mountains that surrounded Harpers Ferry.
It seemed good to get back over dry land after Tom and Bob’s short journey on foot over the Potomac. I was extremely worried that my photographer would force me to pose on the footbridge where my unsecured head would likely drop into the river below. That’s not the way I want everything to end – food for the resin-eating fishes.
When we finally got back to the Jeep, I thought for sure our time in Harpers Ferry was over, but I was wrong. As a matter of fact, there was a Presidential site in town that my companions had accidentally stumbled upon while reading some signage near John Brown’s Fort. It turned out that site was known as ‘Jefferson Rock’, which was a natural rock formation that consisted of several masses of Harpers shale, piled one upon the other. Not only did that site overlook the Shenandoah River, it also wasn’t too far away. My photographer had sought out a NPS Ranger for driving directions to the scenic rock, but the ranger busted Tom’s bubble when he said we had to hike uphill along a pathway; there was no way to drive up to the rock. Since our time at Rapidan Camp on May 12th, “hike” was a four-letter swear word in my cameraman’s vocabulary. And when the word “uphill” was added, they became fighting words.
Tom used the map on his phone to find a road, as well as the closest place to park where we could access the trail up to Jefferson Rock. That parking place turned out to be a small lot intended for visitors and staff of the nearby St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church. Although there was a sign at the parking lot’s entrance that read ‘Authorized Vehicles Only’, I heard Tom say to Bob that he would rather pay the parking fine than walk up that extremely steep road he had just driven. But finding a place to park was only half the battle – Tom still had a 500-foot uphill hike once we made it onto the rustic Appalachian National Scenic Trail that led visitors to the famous rock. It was easy for me to say the effort was worth it, because I rode comfortably in the camera case that was around Tom’s shoulder, but once we arrived at Jefferson Rock, the view was breathtaking. And to put the whipped cream on the American apple pie, Thomas Jefferson stood on that same rock on October 25, 1783. That’s right, just seven years after he penned his famous words onto the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson arrived at the site, admired nature’s beauty around him, and then recorded in his journal: “It is as placid and delightful as (it) is wild and tremendous. This scene is worth a voyage across the Atlantic.”
When we finished our visit at Jefferson Rock, Tom slowly and methodically made his way along the trail back to the Jeep. Thankfully for him, the entire 500-foot hike was all downhill; but my photographer still huffed and puffed the entire way. And thankfully for me, I never lost my head once during our entire two-hour stay in Harpers Ferry. Quite frankly, that was a stroke of luck because nothing held my head in place except for gravity. As Tom fired up the Jeep’s engine, I heard him tell Mongo: “I need to stop at the first Walmart we see so I can buy something to help keep Jefferson’s head from falling off.”
When abolitionist John Brown was taken captive in Harpers Ferry on October 18, 1859, he was questioned for three hours in an office at the armory. Funny thing was, murder and inciting a slave insurrection was not a federal crime, which meant Brown and his small handful of surviving raiders were transported seven miles west to Charles Town, the seat of Jefferson County, where their trial would be held in the county courthouse. That courthouse in Charles Town, West Virginia was our next destination; except for a much-needed stop at Walmart; which turned out to be less than two miles from the courthouse.
Tom searched high and low inside Walmart for the same type of tack puddy he used in 2013 to reattach my head after Garfield’s ghost had mysteriously removed it. But when he found the type of puddy the store had in stock, it wasn’t the same 3M Scotch brand mounting puddy that worked well before. Not wanting to take more time to search for another store, my photographer settled for the package of blue colored Sticky Tack, which he hoped would work. Back in the Jeep, Tom placed a big gob of the blue puddy into the opening of my head and he pressed my melon onto my body. It seemed to work. Although my head didn’t wiggle, it felt secure to my body – and that was the important thing.
It was roughly 11:50am when Tom parked the Jeep along East Washington Street in downtown Charles Town, West Virginia; we were nearly in the shadow of the historic Jefferson County Courthouse. When my photographer carried me to the front of the building, I was amazed by the four massive Doric columns that supported the front portico and large clock tower. Built in 1836 – 37, the Jefferson County Courthouse gained national fame in 1859 when it played host to the “Trial of the Century”. On October 27, 1859, abolitionist John Brown was put on trial and charged with treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, inciting a slave insurrection, and murder. It was the first trial in our country that was nationally reported, but unfortunately for Brown, he didn’t have Johnnie Cochran as his lawyer. After closing arguments concluded on October 31st, the Charles Town jury deliberated for 45 minutes and found the abolitionist guilty on all three counts. Two days after Brown’s conviction, the judge, who was not named Lance Ito, sentenced Brown to be executed by public hanging on December 2, 1859.
When Tom and Bob finished taking their photos of the exterior, the three of us went inside the historic courthouse with the hope of seeing the actual courtroom where John Brown was tried. But that didn’t happen; the courtroom was closed on Thursday and the staff members would not let us gain access to where the historic trial had unfolded. Instead, my photographer placed me on the original wooden floorboards outside the courtroom where John Brown undoubtedly once walked.
The jail where John Brown was confined was once located kitty-corner across Washington Street from the courthouse, but the city’s post office had been built on the jail’s footprint long ago. Since Tom didn’t want me to pose in front of the post office, we boarded the Jeep and headed four blocks south of the courthouse to the site of John Brown’s execution. As my photographer slowly drove down South Samuel Street to the site, I envisioned the condemned prisoner as he rode in the back of a furniture wagon to his execution. To make matters worse for the martyr, Brown was forced to sit on his own coffin during the entire ride. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment.
Several thousand soldiers and dozens of curiosity seekers had gathered on the vacant field where a wooden scaffold had been erected. The streets near the site were lined with soldiers to prevent a potential rescue, but John Brown wanted no heroic intervention. Instead, he wanted the execution to be carried out immediately. Brown walked up the steps to the noose, as coolly as though he was walking to dinner. In his final statement that he had written on a piece of paper moments earlier, Brown prophetically said in part: “I am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with blood.” At roughly 11:15am Friday December 2, 1859, the trap door of the gallows opened and John Brown fell to his death at the end of a rope. And guess who was among the spectators? None other than John Wilkes Booth, who had borrowed a military uniform so he could get a front row seat for the execution.
John Brown was the first person executed for treason in the history of the United States. While Brown’s futile attempt at starting a slave revolt throughout the south didn’t go as planned, he did do something that few men before him had the guts to try – end slavery in our nation. John Brown died a martyr, and he sacrificed his life in an attempt to help those held in the evil bondage of slavery. Do I think Brown deserved to be executed for his raid on the arsenal at Harpers Ferry where he held hostages against their will? Absolutely not! Maybe he deserved to spend a couple of years in prison, like most insurrectionists, but he shouldn’t have been sentenced to death. The entire fiasco was a political farce that started with President James Buchanan and ended with Virginia Governor Henry A. Wise; both political opportunists and cowards in my eyes.
The three of us left one site where the government killed a person without just cause, and we headed for the gravesite of another person killed by our government without just cause. At 12:30pm, with Tom behind the wheel of our Jeep, the three of us embarked on a 195-mile trek to Wilkins Township, Pennsylvania, which was only 10 miles east of Pittsburgh. When we stopped along a street near the Parkway Jewish Center Cemetery, the three of us got out of the Jeep and walked down a pathway to the small fenced-in burial ground. From the moment we left our vehicle, until I was carried under the archway at the cemetery’s entrance, everything seemed very familiar. I knew I had been there before, but I couldn’t remember for what. But when Tom placed me on a three-foot-tall polished red-granite marker that was etched with the name Allison Beth Krause, the reason for our visit became clear – especially when I also saw the words: ‘Flowers are better than bullets – May 3, 1970’.
On May 4, 1970, Allison Krause was one of four students shot and killed by Ohio Army National Guardsmen when the soldiers fired 67 shots in 13 seconds at a crowd of students engaged in protests on the campus of Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. Allison was a beautiful 19-year-old college student who was protesting for peace, and there was nothing wrong with that. But for some reason, President Richard Nixon thought there was. The President, who had escalated the Vietnam War instead of withdrawing U.S. troops as he had promised, insisted the nationwide protests by college students needed to be stopped. In Ohio, Governor James Rhodes ordered the guardsmen onto the Kent State University campus because he and Nixon wanted to prohibit those students from exercising their rights under the United States Constitution. And when it was over; when the flashes from the soldier’s gun barrels had subsided in just 13 seconds; Allison Krause, Jeffery Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder had been struck down. Four college students lying in pools of their own blood in an American university parking lot. And for what? It was because they were demonstrating against President Nixon’s recent escalation of the Vietnam War; a war that had obviously trickled onto the streets and campuses of America by 1970.
For me, the real sad part of the story happened the night before Allison was killed. Krause, an honor student, walked with her boyfriend to an area where some National Guard troops had assembled near the front of the Kent State campus. She saw one young soldier who stood alone, a lilac sprouted from the barrel of his rifle that had been placed there by another student. As Allison and the young soldier, a student himself, engaged in a pleasant conversation, the guardsman’s commanding officer intervened. The officer wasn’t happy his soldier was fraternizing with a student; he was even more furious when he saw the lilac. When the young guardsman removed the flower and handed it to the superior, the officer scolded him: “Straighten up, act like a soldier, and forget all this peace stuff.” Allison Krause snatched the flower from the officer’s hand and shouted: “What’s the matter with peace? Flowers are better than bullets.” Fifteen hours later, Allison Krause was gunned down; shot in the chest from 343 feet away.
In a sense, the Kent State Massacre and John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry had eerie similarities, at least in my resin mind. While President Nixon’s decisions escalated the Vietnam War and he ordered National Guardsmen onto dozens of campuses around the nation, it was Ohio Governor James Rhodes who came to Kent State University and called the demonstrators “the worst type of people we harbor in America.” Then the cowardly governor promised the guardsmen would “use whatever force necessary to drive them out of Kent.” John Brown died for what he believed in; as did Allison Krause – a little over 110 years later.
The three of us left the small Jewish cemetery with heavy hearts. But we also left with a feeling that Allsion Krause was a visionary who was far ahead of her time. Imagine today, with the gun violence all around our country, if everyone in America embraced Allison’s words and stopped the madness. Guns don’t kill people; bullets do. As Allison Krause said, just 15 hours before she was shot to death: “Flowers are better than bullets.”
It was late in the afternoon when we drove out of Wilkins Township and headed westward past Pittsburgh and into Ohio. From an opening in the camera case, I saw a sign that indicated we were very close to Youngstown, which meant only one thing, at least in my mind: We were going back to William McKinley’s birthplace in nearby Niles. But I was wrong; we were on our way to Canfield, Ohio to visit the grave of another victim of the Kent State Massacre – Sandra Lee Scheuer.
We arrived in the Canfield area, which was a small town located ten miles southwest of Youngstown, at roughly 5:40pm. Immediately upon our arrival at the cemetery on Tippecanoe Road, which my companions figured was Ohev Tzedek Cemetery, I knew something was wrong. After a thorough search of the grounds, Tom and Bob could not locate Sandy’s grave, even though the cemetery seemed fairly small. Worst of all, they saw a Baptist Church alongside the burial ground, and they knew Scheuer was Jewish. Nothing made sense. Were we in the wrong cemetery? How many cemeteries are located along Tippecanoe Road outside of Canfield, Ohio? It turned out there were at least two. When we left the burial ground that my companions originally thought was Ohev Tzedek Cemetery, we stumbled upon a second cemetery located only a half-mile to the south and along the same road.
Luckily for us, the final resting place of Sandra Lee Scheuer wasn’t too far from the main gates of the cemetery. The three-foot-tall polished red granite marker was fairly easy to find; especially when Mongo used a photograph of the headstone to match up the landmarks in the background. When Tom carefully placed me onto Sandy’s gravestone, I was stunned by the similarity between hers and Allison Krause’s marker. Besides the obvious differences in the lettering, the two headstones were the same shape, height, and color. As I stood on the gravestone for a couple of pictures, I thought to myself: “I imagine Sandy would agree with Allison that flowers are better than bullets!”
The 20-year-old Sandy Scheuer was a bubbly honor student and sorority member and was not a participant in the protests that were ongoing at Kent State University in May 1970. Instead, she and a fellow classmate were walking across the parking lot to their next class when gunfire from the Ohio Army National Guardsmen erupted. Even though Sandy was nearly 400 feet from the soldiers, a bullet struck her in the neck, severed her jugular vein, and she died withing five or six minutes in the Prentice Hall parking lot from loss of blood. To make horrific matters even worse for the Scheuer family, May 4, 1970 was Sandy’s parent’s wedding anniversary.
In the past two hours, we had visited the graves of two of the four students who were killed during the Kent State Massacre on May 4, 1970. And with each visit, it sickened me more and more to think about how everything unfolded on that horrific day in American history. It’s a fact that a lot of damage was done to storefronts and businesses in downtown Kent earlier that weekend and everyone was on edge during the riotous atmosphere, which was likely caused by outside revolutionaries rather than students. But for the National Guard to storm an American college campus and open fire on unarmed American students who were exercising their rights under the United States Constitution to peaceful assembly, that’s unfathomable. That kind of crap happens in Russia or China, but it should never happen in the Unites States of America. But it did. And the part that sickens me the most? No one was held accountable for the deaths of those four young students. As a matter of fact, Governor James Rhodes, who fanned the flames of violence that weekend, continued his political career and lived to the ripe old age of 91. And to make matters worse, dozens of sites and buildings throughout Ohio still brandish his name today. To me, Rhodes was a war criminal whose hands were stained with blood; the blood of Allison Krause, Sandy Scheuer, William Schoeder, and Jeffrey Miller. Maybe, just maybe, the people who want to tear down statues of Thomas Jefferson should take a closer look at sites associated with the name Governor James Rhodes instead.
Once I regained my composure at Sandy Scheuer’s grave, Tom placed me back inside the camera case and we headed for the hotel Bob had reserved in Canton, Ohio, which was only 45 miles southwest of Canfield. We made it to the Fairfield Inn by 7:40pm; my companions dined in our room on the elegant cuisine of Taco Bell; and guess what? There was still plenty of time left in the day for more sightseeing.
Canton’s native son was William McKinley, our 25th President. McKinley worked there; he lived there; he was married there; he campaigned for President there, and following his death in Buffalo, he was entombed in Canton. I had visited the impressive William McKinley National Memorial three times in the past nine years, but I had never seen it at night. That changed as soon as the three of us arrived at the McKinley Memorial forty minutes after sunset. While the sky wasn’t completely black when Tom first carried me from the Jeep towards the tiers of steps leading up to the tomb, it didn’t take long before the day’s final light had faded away.
Upon first glimpse of the memorial, I was surprised and a bit disappointed at the same time. I had envisioned the McKinley tomb to be illuminated like the famous monuments in Washington D.C., but that just wasn’t the case. As a matter of fact, the lack of illumination made the 108 granite steps slightly treacherous for my not-so-graceful photographer. For the most part, Tom, Bob, and I were the only ones at the memorial – which meant the “Moldenhauer One Person Rule” wasn’t a factor. At one point, however, I happened to spot a young couple as they made the long trek up the steps; but they quickly disappeared behind the monument. I’m not sure where they went, but luckily, I never saw them again.
When we finally got to the top of the steps, I noticed the double bronze doors to the memorial’s circular mausoleum were locked shut – and that wasn’t a surprise at 9:30pm. But locked doors or not, an eerie feeling filled my body when Tom placed me next to the 96-foot-tall pink granite structure for some pictures. The night air was dead still; and the area was so deafening quiet that I wondered if the spiritual entities of William and Ida would pay us a visit. Please enjoy Tom’s photos from our visit to the William McKinley National Memorial and see it as we did when the twilight turned to the blackness of night.
The entire night experience at McKinley’s tomb was something that took me by surprise. I admit, it’s very cool when Tom and Bob take me to historical sites at night because everything seems to take on a completely different look in the darkness compared to the light of day. Plus, as an added bonus, there’s always less people at night and I have a better opportunity for a paranormal encounter as well. While my past ghost experiences have scared the bejeezus out of me, those brushes with the spirit world have been the basis of numerous memorable stories once I returned safely home.
Before we made our way back to the hotel, I nearly pooped my breeches when I heard my companions say they wanted to pay a visit to the Werts Receiving Vault located in nearby West Lawn Cemetery. It’s one thing to visit an illuminated tomb that’s completely out in the open, but the original temporary tomb of President McKinley was located in the very dark and eerie cemetery. In my mind, I figured the gates to the burial ground would’ve been locked; but that wasn’t the case. Tom drove the Jeep slowly into the cemetery and within a minute or two, we were parked directly in front of the historic structure. Just being among all the graves at night made me extremely nervous as the ‘Night of the Living Dead’ scenario played out in my head. There was no doubt in my mind that my photographer would force me to pose on that scary tomb, but with the lack of lighting; plus, the fact we had visited the same vault twice in the recent past; that didn’t happen.
I was able to breathe a sigh of relief when we left West Lawn Cemetery and we were on the road back to the Fairfield Inn. Safely in our room, Tom set me alongside the TV set where I spent the final night of our trip. The lights were extinguished at 11pm and I was left alone with my thoughts; not to mention the familiar sound of snoring from the direction of my photographer. But instead of replaying the day’s amazing sites in my mind, all I could focus on was the tomb of President James Garfield. While there was no paranormal activity at McKinley’s tomb, at least none that we experienced, I figured that would likely change the following afternoon at Lake View Cemetery near Cleveland – which Tom had planned as one of our final stops of the trip.
Three times I had visited President Garfield’s crypt in the past and three times I’ve experienced mysterious and unexplained phenomenon there. What could the ghost of our 20th President have in store for me this time? I knew one thing was certain – Garfield will be shocked when he discovers my head had already been removed two days earlier. My one wish? The bright blue tack; keeps my head securely intact; from any unprovoked attack; from James Garfield’s revenge pact.
