For reasons of political expediency, Republicans in the North initially distanced themselves from John Brown and his raid to free people enslaved around Harper’s Ferry.
Many joined the chorus of (often pro-slavery) voices proclaiming Brown insane, no doubt in part to protect their own political party, for as John Brown’s biographer David S. Reynolds put it, “the implication was that Republicans, and by extension many Northerners, were lawbreakers who threatened national peace.”
The truth of course, was that Brown had probably already planned a raid into Virginia to free slaves there before the Republican Party was founded in 1854. [Read more…] about The Last Days of John Brown: The Famous Beard
Ten men were killed during 
The Lake George steamer Sagamore may hold a unique record. At 224 feet and able to carry 1,500 passengers, the Sagamore was largest of the steamboats plying the lake for the Champlain Transportation Company – it also had a dubious record of groundings and collisions. 
As the first full day of John Brown’s raid dawned almost no one in the village of Harpers Ferry 
October 16th is the anniversary of the anti-slavery raid on Harpers Ferry that ended in the trial and execution of John Brown of North Elba. You can read the entire 
On October 2nd, 2005, the 40-foot cruise boat Ethan Allen capsized on Lake George with 49 senior citizens on board. Twenty were killed making it the most deadly tragedy in the history of Lake George and the Adirondack Region.
In early October, 1859 John Brown and his small militia were making their final preparations for a raid on the slaveholders of Virginia.
On July 30th, 1856 the 140-feet long John Jay (built in 1850) was delayed at Ticonderoga’s Baldwin Dock waiting on the stagecoach from Lake Champlain, where the large number of passengers required several trips to get everyone to the boat.