John Brown Farm State Historic Site

When the Browns first came to the Adirondacks, in 1849, North Elba did not exist and the farmhouse had not yet been built. North Elba was separated from the town of Keene effective January 1, 1850. John Brown rented a little house from "Cone" Flanders. His daughter Ruth described it in a letter: The "chamber" was the unfinished attic, or second story. This small house sheltered a family of ten, one or more colored helpers, and occasional guests. The ten in the family were Brown and his wife Mary, five sons (Owen, Frederick, Watson, Salmon, and Oliver) and three daughters (Ruth, Annie, and Sarah). (His other sons, John Jr. and Jason were married and living separately.) They lived in this house for two years, until Brown moved his family and his cattle to Akron, Ohio, where he needed to be while winding up his wool business. The Flanders house burned in the first half of the 20th century. "Our readers cannot have forgotten the strong impression produced by the appearance at the recent Fair, of the magnificent [Devons] of Mr. Brown of North Elba. We are happy to Iearn that Mr. Brown, whose zeal and efficiency is most commendable, has, during the present autumn, added some fine animals to his herd. In justice to him we must remark that some of his more valuable stock was not exhibited at the Fair." In 1855 Brown and his family moved back to North Elba and built the surviving home. ==A refuge for his family==

Brown viewed the house he had built as a place not for himself—he lived there only 6 non-consecutive months—but for his wife and younger children, where they would be safe while he and his four oldest sons were in Kansas fighting slavery. According to a local historian, "besides the other inducements which this rough and bleak region offered him, he considered it a good refuge for his wife and younger children, when he should go on his campaign; a place where they would not only be safe and independent, but could live frugally, and both learn and practise those habits of thrifty industry which Brown thought indispensable in the training of children." Actually running the farm in 1859 was John's son Salmon, aged 23. ==Description==

Much is known about John Brown's farm as it was in 1859. A reporter from the New York Tribune and Thomas Nast, a sketch artist from the New York Illustrated News, were present at Brown's funeral. Rev. Joshua Young, who lost his pulpit (job) in Vermont for having presided over Brown's funeral, also left a lengthy description, and the farm was also described by a visitor to the widowed Mrs. Brown in 1861, The John Brown Farm, on John Brown Road (New York State Route 910M), is in the township of North Elba, south of the modern village of Lake Placid, which did not exist in 1859. It was about from the former hamlet of Black farmers at Timbuctoo, New York, whom Brown attempted to teach to farm. According to the deed, the property consisted of . The site today (2021) is in size, of which the northern third houses the developed part of the site, with the balance in now reforested hills. However, a visitor to the widowed Mary Brown in 1861 described the property as "a circular patch of about , cleared in the midst of the primeval forest, covered over with blackened stumps, and devoted to grass, buckwheat, oats and potatoes." About 1860, Salmon Brown's potato harvest, which he sold to "the starch factory", was . The developed area today (2021) includes John Brown's farmhouse and barn, the exhibit "Dreaming of Timbuctoo" permanently installed on the second floor of the barn, as well as a caretaker's house and other infrastructure for visitors. The house was described in 1859 as "a medium-sized frame building, such as is common in that part of the country. It has four rooms on the first floor, and corresponding space above." A modern description is: "The house is a -story timber-framed structure, with a gable roof and clapboarded exterior. Its front is four bays wide, with the entrance in the left center bay, topped by a transom window. Most of the finishes, both interior and exterior, are restorations performed in the second half of the 20th century to bring about a c. 1860 appearance." An 1859 visitor continued: The family graveyard, which Mary Brown exempted from the sale, is now part of the site, encircled by a modern iron fence. A statue of John Brown by Joseph Pollia, placed in 1935, stands nearby. A 2002 visitor described the grave as "a chaotic memorial, a riot of symbol and meaning." ==History==

John Brown arrived in upstate New York as part of a project funded by Gerrit Smith to assist Blacks in becoming property owners and thus voters, under New York State law at the time. To this end he gave away hundreds of tracts of Adirondack wilderness to be cleared and farmed. (See Timbuctoo, New York.) John Brown was financially ruined saying that his years in rural Pennsylvania showed that he knew how to clear land and build a farm, and organize a community. He agreed to teach these skills to the Blacks. He said that he had purchased the farm from Smith, and he had a deed registered at the county clerk in Elizabethtown, but he never paid Smith anything. His wife was Brown's daughter Ruth. Brown's funeral and burial, December 8, 1859 After Brown's failed raid on Harpers Ferry and execution on December 2, 1859, his widow Mary brought his body back to his farm for burial, which took place December 8. Half of those present were Black, most formerly enslaved. Wendell Phillips spoke. John Brown's favorite hymn, "Blow ye the trumpets, blow!" was sung. The Unitarian minister conducting the service, Joshua Young, recited as the casket was put in the ground. Upon returning to Burlington, disapproval of his participation in Brown's funeral was so severe that he was forced to resign his pulpit, and his friends said that he had ruined his future, which turned out not to be true. Memorial service, July 4, 1860 Over 1,000 people were present at the farm on July 4, 1860, for a memorial service, including the surviving members of Brown's family, all but one (Tidd) of the surviving participants in Brown's raid, and hundreds of friends, including Thaddeus Hyatt. Salmon, shortly before he died, dictated to his daughter his recollections, which were incompletely published, and briefly told a journalist some of his recollections of his father. A 20th-century descendant of John Brown, Alice Keesey McCoy, said that within the family, he was not talked about, that there were feelings of shame. Brown's daughter Annie did not even tell her children "what Browns they were", because she felt it would hinder them to be known as John Brown's grandchildren. Mary Brown sells the property to Alexis Hinckley Funds collected from Brown followers for the support of Mary Brown, his widow, enabled her to add between 1860 and 1863 the addition with two windows on the right (removed during restoration). none of his family would remain long at the North Elba farm. In 1860 his three oldest sons, John Jr, Jason, and Owen, were all living in Ohio. Salmon, who later remarked that the Brown family was "despised bitterly" and “our family was long buffeted from pillar to post,” also departed, in his case for California. He was accompanied by his wife, children, mother Mary Brown, and sisters Sarah and Ellen, Mary seeking "a chance to start over in a 'new country". In 1863 Mary leased the farm to Alexis Hinckley, brother of Salmon's wife. In 1865 he purchased it from her, the grave site being exempted, for $800 (~$ in ). It was with the proviso, added to the deed, that any interested party should be allowed to cross the property to access her husband's grave. Registers were kept so that visitors could write their name and any comments; Joshua Young left remarks in 1866. Preserving the property Already in 1864 "many tourists, from various parts of the country, ...have made a pilgrimage..to the tomb of John Brown." In 1867, "nearly every day people from a distance visit this...shrine of John Brown, the martyr." In 1870 Alexis Hinckley, described as a "thin, sad man", whose wife had died, wanted to move. (He turns up later in Pasadena, California, where some Brown family members—Ruth, Owen, and Jason—were.) He listed the farm for sale for $2,000 (). It was purchased by journalist Kate Field; a monument with her name and the other nineteen sponsors is displayed at the farm. She formed a John Brown Association to oversee the preservation of what she called "John Brown's Grave and Farm", and make it accessible to visitors. By 1894, the cumulative number of visitors was said to have been "tens of thousands". It was given to the State of New York in 1896. In 1897, President McKinley was spending his summer in Plattsburgh, New York, and a special train to Lake Placid took him, Vice-President Hobart, Secretary of War Russell A. Alger, Secretary to the President John Addison Porter, and various Plattsburgh politicians, including Smith M. Weed, to the site for the dedication ceremony. John Brown's favorite hymn, "Blow ye the trumpet, blow", was sung. ==Graves==

There have been three burials on the John Brown Farm: • John Brown himself, buried on December 8, 1859, immediately after his execution. • Watson Brown, one of John Brown's sons, died 1859, buried in 1882. His body was brought for burial by his mother; it was her first visit to the farm since leaving it in the early 1860s. • In a single coffin, since the condition of the remains did not permit better identification, the remains of 10 of the raiders, including son Oliver Brown, died or executed 1859–60, were reburied on August 30, 1899. The coffin was donated by the town of North Elba. A cenotaph on the grave of John Brown was originally erected and inscribed for his grandfather, Capt. John Brown, who died September 5, 1776, while serving in the Continental Army. It originally sat at the elder Brown's gravesite in Connecticut. When it was replaced by a newer stone, the younger Brown moved it himself to his farm in New York. but this met with local opposition, as did the erection of any monument to Brown other than the boulder. ==Modern activities==

Beginning in 1922, the African-American members of the John Brown Memorial Association, based in Philadelphia, together with some local sympathetic whites, made an annual pilgrimage to Brown's farm and grave. In the early years especially, the Association would bring prominent speakers, such as attorney Clarence Darrow, Brown biographer Oswald Garrison Villard, and labor leader A. Philip Randolph. In 1935 there was a full program of activities and speakers, centering on the new "impressive heroic-sized statue of John Brown befriending a Negro boy", by Joseph Pollia. Unveiling was by Lyman Epps, Jr., a local celebrity, who was the only person present who had attended, as a boy, Brown's 1859 burial. The plinth is of Ausable granite; the cement foundation, landscaping, walks, and rustic fences were the result of work by the Civilian Conservation Corps) (CCC). Attendance was 2,000, including the mayor of Lake Placid, state historian Alexander C. Flick, and written greetings from Governor Lehman. A "colored quartet" from Lincoln University (Pennsylvania) sang. The Lake Placid Justice O. Bryan Brewster of the New York Supreme Court gave that evening what the press called an "impressive and masterful address" on John Brown. The Lake Placid Junior High School Glee Club sang "John Brown's Body". After 1970, reports Amy Godine, the tone and goals of this annual pilgrimage shifted and softened, and failed to keep pace with the burgeoning civil rights movement. Attendance waned. In 1997 the John Brown Farm and Gravesite was nominated as a National Historic Landmark. At the 150th anniversary of the raid In 2009, a two-day symposium, "John Brown Comes Home", on the influence and reverberations of Brown's raid was held, using facilities in adjacent Lake Placid. Speakers included Bernadine Dohrn, whose relationship with her family has been said to have resembled John Brown's ("a similar history of personal unhappiness, alienation, and parental difficulties"), and a great-great-great-granddaughter of Brown. An annual Blues at Timbuctoo festival is held at the John Brown Farm, presented by the organization John Brown Lives! Friends of Freedom. The festival is a combination of blues music and conversation around race relations. The festival was launched in 2015. In 2017, the State University of New York at Potsdam held an archeology field school at the site, searching for artifacts linked to Brown.{{cite news ==Gallery==

Image:Parlor in John Brown's Farmhouse.jpg| Image:Kitchen in John Brown's Farmhouse.jpg| Image:First floor Bedroom in John Brown's Farm.JPG| Image:Bedroom in John Brown's Farmhouse.jpg| Image:John Brown's Tombstone.jpg| File:Plaque at John Brown's grave.jpg| ==See also==

• {{cite journal • {{cite news • {{cite news • {{cite book • {{cite journal ==External links==