Biography
Albert Hazlett was a Pennsylvania-born veteran of Brown's Kansas militia who escaped Harpers Ferry but was captured in Pennsylvania days later. He used the alias William Harrison and refused to admit his identity, but was extradited to Virginia, convicted, and hanged at Charles Town on March 16, 1860, alongside Aaron Stevens.
On October 16-18, 1859, the abolitionist John Brown led 21 men in an attempted raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), aiming to arm enslaved people and ignite a general uprising against slavery. The raid was suppressed within 36 hours by U.S. Marines under Robert E. Lee. Ten raiders were killed, seven were captured, and five escaped. The captured raiders were tried by the Commonwealth of Virginia for treason against the state, murder, and conspiring with slaves to rebel — all crimes for which they were sentenced to death by hanging at Charles Town. Their executions made them, in the months before the Civil War, the most consequential political prisoners in American history.
