The John Brown Farm State Historic Site includes the home and final resting place of abolitionist John Brown (1800–1859). It is located on John Brown Road in the town of North Elba, 3 miles (5 km) southeast of Lake Placid, New York, where John Brown moved in 1849 to teach farming to African Americans. It has been called the highest farm in the state, "the highest arable spot of land in the State, if, indeed, soil so hard and sterile can be called arable." (Most of this article was reprinted in The Liberator, December 16, 1859, p. 3 .)
According to a 1935 visitor, "the site which so captivated John Brown on his first visit and held his interest to the end of his life is one of the most impressive in the Adirondacks. The awe-inspiring mountains surrounding the spot look down on friendly valleys, lakes, hills, streams, homes, hamlets and villages. The panorama stresses the power, majesty and eternal verities embodied in the towering peaks; calls attention to the peace, grandeur and solitude of the region; and deepens the feeling of man's weakness, finiteness and transitory abode on mother earth."
A visiting reporter described the scenery as "absolutely the grandest in all the Adirondack region, being superior to that found at Mirror Lake and Lake Placid. ...A superb view."
It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1998. and It has been managed by the state since 1896; the grounds are open to the public on a year-round basis, and tours of the house are offered in the warmer months.
The weather was described at the time as "six months winter and the other six months was mighty cold weather". A recent (2002) writer called it "one of the most inhospitable places in the eastern United States".
The Browns' first house in North Elba 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.
John's cattle were exhibited at the Essex County Fair in 1850: "No incident of the Fair, however, was more exciting and grateful to Essex County than the, to most of us, unlooked-for advent of the splendid specimens of Devons. These most beautiful and noble animals are the property of Mr. John Brown, of North Elba, and as a single entry, triumphantly bore away the palm. Essex County is deeply indebted to Mr. Brown. While we acknowledge the succor the county derived from his exhibition in her friendly competition with Clinton [County], we trust his public spirit and enterprise will be appreciated and addquately rewarded." "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, and, slightly earlier, by Adirondack tourists who happened upon it.
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." "It is a rude frame building, two stories high, and has anything but a pretentious appearance." The 1861 visitor called it a cabin, "which has recently received the addition of another room, and the logs of the building covered with clap-boards through the liberality of his Boston friends". "What! That humble unpainted farmhouse John Brown's home?" was the comment of Kate Field, who arranged the purchase and donation of the farm to New York State. 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 and had lost the family's home because of his disastrous 1849 business trip to England, meaning he could not repay the loans he had taken out to buy wool. Hearing on his return from England that Smith was giving away farms to Blacks, he traveled to Smith's home and asked for one, 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. The purchase was finally paid for by a collection among his friends.
The Timbuctoo experiment was a failure, as almost all the Blacks, save Lyman Epps, left within a few years; it was too cold and isolated, and clearing land and creating a farm is hard work. However, Brown himself did succeed in building a farm that could support his family.
The house was built by John Brown's son-in-law Henry Thompson "with his own hands". 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. It was the last time Brown's traumatized family would gather together. None ever spoke publicly about him, and none of the many people who wrote of contact with Brown's survivors reports private conversations. The one who was most directly involved in the Harpers Ferry Raid, Owen, 12 years later, after repeated attempts by a journalist, told his story once. 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).
Contrary to Brown's wish, 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