turned the body into a museum exhibit, the specimen was created "as an object of warning and curiosity." who was the warning intended for? not the citizens of winchester. the warning was to abolitionists, as the label said. somebody intended it to be seen, and assumed correctly that the college would be one of the first buildings visited, the troops searching every building for lodging and hospital beds. and one can well ask, if the specimen was so valuable, why was it left, along with the slain black boy, for the union troops to find? the confederate withdrawal was not sudden; people had enough time to load wagons with their furniture. there was plenty of time to move the specimen. dr. hugh mcguire could easily have sent it to richmond with his family.: 19–20 that it was left there, then, implies that it and the boy were there for the union soldiers to find, as an insult to them, dishonoring their hero, and showing what they thought of pro-union blacks. the burning can only have been in response to this perceived insult. it was reinforced by the fact that the dr. mcguire, the college president, was strongly pro-secession. he was present when it was burned. the identification and burial of watson's body dr. johnson reaches out to john brown's widow mrs. brown, john brown's widow, lived in california. she travelled considerably, attending fundraisers and seeking employment or support; she was near-destitute. a fundraiser was announced for chicago to raise money for a monument to brown, and she attended, intending to travel on to visit her two stepsons in ohio, john jr. and owen, and her husband's grave at north elba, which she had not visited in over 20 years. her trip to chicago was funded by friends. a second fundraiser in chicago was intended to buy her a homestead in california. it was attended by over 1,000 people, and the amount raised "will probably be quite a handsome sum". these facts appeared in the chicago tribune and then were reprinted in the indianapolis journal, where they came to the attention of dr. jarvis johnson. johnson wrote the chicago tribune, asking that it inform mrs. brown that he had the body of one of her sons, whose name was either edward or edwin. (another report on johnson says the names he gave were "owen, or edwin".) unsure of what her reaction might be, rather than give johnson's letter directly to mrs. brown, the paper said editorially, it passed it on to her stepson john jr., whom she was about to visit at his home in put-in-bay, ohio. johnson then wrote to john jr. saying that he believed he had the body of one of his brothers, and that he wished to return it so that it could be properly buried. johnson made clear in his letters that he was not selling the body and would not accept any reward or other compensation. this helped johnson's credibility; at first there was skepticism of his story. john brown jr. travels to martinsville to identify the remains the brown family knew that two sons had died in harpers ferry: watson and oliver; owen also participated but escaped. they knew also that one body had been taken to the winchester medical college, but they did not know which. no one else knew either. it was called a mystery that would never be solved. only known picture of watson brown. john jr., with photos of both watson and oliver, traveled to martinsville to inspect the remains—he was the guest of the governor of indiana for dinner. at john's request, indiana state geologist john collett, whom john jr. knew from their common interest in phrenology, also traveled to martinsville to see the body. from the pictures and the bullet hole, they both concluded the body was watson and not oliver. watson brown's burial watson's body was taken on the train by john jr. to put-in-bay, and their mother then took it to her former home, today the john brown farm state historic site, near lake placid, new york. he was buried next to his father in october of 1882, 23 years after his death.