John Brown was born on May 9, 1800 in Torrington, Connecticut. When he was about five years old, his father moved the family to Hudson, Ohio. There, John was filled with the heavy anti-slavery sentiment that was present in that area. This, combined with personal observations of the maltreatment of blacks and the influence of Calvinism, started John Brown on his crusade to abolish slavery.

While still living in Hudson he married Dianthe Lusk and began to raise a family. To support his family he worked as a farmer, tanner, and surveyor.

In 1849, John Brown moved with his second wife, Mary Ann Day, and their seven children to North Elba. He planned to aid the free blacks living in colony, dubbed "Timbucto", adjust to the hardships of farming in the Adirondacks. John Brown soon realized the impossibility of his task and abandoned "Timbucto" to follow the abolitionist movement in Kansas where five of his sons were already stationed.

Although John Brown did not maintain permanent residence at his North Elba farm thereafter due to his anti-slavery campaigns, he returned intermittently to check on his family. The family struggled on valiantly without complaint, willing to make any sacrifices necessary to further the abolitionist cause. Mary Brown sustained the family by planting rye, carrots, turnips, and other hardy crops suited to the brutally short Adirondack growing season and by raising cattle and other livestock. This domestic produce was supplemented by various plants the family gathered from the surrounding countryside.

After such bloody encounters as Pottawamie Creek in Kansas, John Brown began to amass arms and make battle plans in earnest for a full-fledged invasion of the South. This plan was to culminate in the raid on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, but once John Brown and his followers had captured the arsenal, they found themselves trapped. They were then captured and turned over to state authorities. John Brown was found guilty and sentenced to death. After John Brown was hung in Charleston on Dec.2, 1859, his body was returned to the Adirondacks to be interred on the Brown farm according to his wishes. Later the bodies of his sons and the bodies of ten of his associates who were killed at Harper's Ferry were also brought to the farm for burial.

Mary Brown and her children remained at the farm for a few years after John's death. However, the unforgiving climate of the Adirondacks made subsistence farming very difficult. In 1863, the remaining members of the Brown family moved to California, only returning to observe the burial of Watson.

More on John Brown
Books on the Abolitionist

---

Return to: The Abolitionist Index