One of the familiar attacks on John Brown (and by extension his anti-slavery legacy) involves his failed business ventures and accusations that he was a swindler and a drifter, roaming from place to place – only briefly and uneventfully staying in North Elba, Essex County, NY.
“Over the years before his Kansas escapade Brown had been a drifter, horse thief and swindler,” Columbia University historian John Garraty once wrote. Garraty served as the president of the Society of American Historians and was co-author of the high school history textbook The American Nation (he died in 2007).
A closer look at Brown and the his family, however, reveals an experience typical of many Americans, then and today, and the importance of North Elba in Brown’s plans for a raid into Virginia. [Read more…] about The Last Days of John Brown: North Elba
Adirondack Experience, the Museum on Blue Mountain Lake, (ADKX) will host two family-friendly fall festivals to close out the 2021 season. 
John Brown Lives! and Grand Adirondack Hotel will present the 7th annual Blues at Timbuctoo featuring Jerry Dugger; Karl Schwarz; Split Rock Ramblers; Soul Sky Duo with Mark Emanatian and Jeremy Walz on Saturday, September 19th, from noon to 5 pm. 
Champlain Area Trails (CATS) will host a Grand Opening Celebration for the Essex Quarry Nature Preserve on Saturday, September 18th. 
As a boy growing up in the Battle Hill section of White Plains, NY, I remember my excitement at reading a brass memorial telling me “George Washington slept here.” White Plains was the site of a battle during the 
Commemorations for the 250th anniversary of the 
Ask someone the name of a three-ring circus and their response would likely be Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey, or a combination of the two. Ringling Brothers World’s Greatest Shows was established in 1884 and P.T. Barnum’s Great Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan, and Hippodrome had opened in 1871. Predating both was the biggest, most successful, though also the least known of the traveling shows, Adam Forepaugh’s Great All-Feature Show and Wild West Combined, established in 1863.