[4]: 50  As a young man, he married Evans and they lived near Hillsborough, North Carolina, until 1843, when the family fled racial persecution, first to Cincinnati, Ohio, and then to Oberlin.

The Copelands lived on the southeast corner of Professor and Morgan Streets,[5] but then moved to a small farm just outside the village on West Hamilton St. John Sr. worked as a carpenter and a joiner, and also acted as a Methodist preacher.

"[9] Together with his maternal uncles, Henry and Wilson Bruce Evans, in September, 1858, Copeland was a leader of the thirty-seven men involved in the incident known as the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue, freeing John Price, a runaway slave who had been captured and held by authorities under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.

[2]: 1794 In September 1859 Copeland was recruited to participate in John Brown's failed raid on Harpers Ferry by his uncle and fellow raider, Lewis Sheridan Leary.

Copeland's role in the Harpers Ferry assault was to seize control of Hall's Rifle Works, along with John Henry Kagi, a white raider.

[10][11]: 811 At the trial, Copeland was found guilty of murder and conspiracy to incite slaves to rebellion, and sentenced to death by hanging.

[14][page needed] Speaking of Copeland, the trial's prosecuting attorney, Andrew Hunter, said: From my intercourse with him I regarded him as one of the most respectable prisoners we had.

None received a proper burial; two, Shields Green and Copeland, were dissected by medical students, and their remains discarded.

Wise replied that as free Blacks they could not enter Virginia, but the body would be given by General Taliaferro to "any white person".

[17] Abolitionists had also written to Governor Wise seeking the bodies of both Copeland and Green; George Stearns, one of Brown's backers, wanted to erect a memorial to them in Auburn Cemetery.

Nevertheless, either Wise went back on his word, or he allowed someone else to assume authority,[18] for no sooner than the bodies were in the ground than they were almost immediately dug up and taken to Winchester Medical College, for use by students studying anatomy.

According to a newspaper report, at the parents' request a "pro-slavery man" went from Washington to claim the body, but he was arrested, held 12 hours, and put on the train home.

[19] Since all agree there was only one white person involved, one must give preference to the first-person account of Professor James Monroe of Oberlin College, a friend of the Copelands.

"[22] After Monroe's return in failure, he gave his report to 3,000 mourners at an Oberlin church, with an empty casket on display.