North Country writer Sandra Weber recently joined the ADK Talks podcast to discuss John Brown Farm: From Abolitionist Vision to Memorial Site (Purple Mountain Press, 2026), is a book devoted entirely to the history and meaning of the John Brown Farm State Historic Site in North Elba, Essex County, NY. [Read more…] about John Brown Farm: Abolitionist Vision to Memorial Site
John Brown SHS
Special Holiday Tours through the John Brown House
John Brown Farm State Historic Site near Lake Placid, NY, welcomes all to enjoy the holiday season at the Brown family home this December.
The historic house will be decorated as a rural Adirondack farmhouse might have been in the mid-1800s. [Read more…] about Special Holiday Tours through the John Brown House
North Country ‘Colors of Freedom Tour’ to Celebrate Juneteenth
Clinton and Essex counties were a center of the roiling abolition controversies before the Civil War, helping many freedom-seekers fleeing enslavement follow the Lake Champlain corridor to Canada in the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s.
A first-ever North Country Juneteenth celebration of the region’s role in the fight against slavery will highlight Underground Railroad work in the area, as well as prominent anti-slavery Quakers and abolitionist John Brown. [Read more…] about North Country ‘Colors of Freedom Tour’ to Celebrate Juneteenth
NY’s Voter Suppression History & John Brown’s Farm
In 2021 we celebrated New York State’s acquisition of John Brown Farm 125 years ago. And it’s good that we did.
But let us also recall a 200th anniversary linked to the John Brown Farm – a connection that has particular importance this year as we witness a voter suppression spree around our country. Two hundred years ago, that was us – our New York ancestors – enacting explicit rules to keep blacks from voting.
John Brown and his family moved to the Adirondacks as part of an effort to counteract New York State-sponsored suppression of voting rights for black men.
We are now seeing a wave of voter suppression efforts in states controlled by Republican legislators fearful of losing their majority power. Well, guess what? That’s exactly what was going on here in good old New York back in the early 1800s. We New Yorkers apparently were leaders in voter suppression. We even put it into the state constitution! That’s more than the states are doing today. [Read more…] about NY’s Voter Suppression History & John Brown’s Farm
John Brown Lives! Marking 125 Years of John Brown Farm Historic Site
John Brown Lives! will commemorate the 125th anniversary of the State of New York acquisition of the John Brown Farm State Historic Site, home of abolitionists John and Mary Brown on the condition that it be used “as a public park or reservation forever,” on Saturday, July 17th. [Read more…] about John Brown Lives! Marking 125 Years of John Brown Farm Historic Site
Timbuctoo: An Adirondack African American Settlement
In this episode of the A New York Minute In History podcast, the history of Timbuctoo, an African American settlement founded by philanthropist Gerrit Smith in response to an 1846 law requiring all black men to own $250 worth of property in order to vote in New York State.
To counter this racist policy, Smith decided to give away 120,000 acres of land to 3,000 free, black New Yorkers, hoping to enable them to move out of cities and work the land to its required value. Lyman Epps and other black pioneers relocated to the wilderness near Lake Placid, New York — as did abolitionist John Brown, who based his family in North Elba to assist the black pioneers in their farming. [Read more…] about Timbuctoo: An Adirondack African American Settlement
John Brown Farm Celebrates 125 Years of State Ownership
In 2021, the state of New York will celebrate 125 years of being caretaker to the John Brown Farm in North Elba, just outside of Lake Placid in the Adirondack Park.
Brown came to the area to help recently freed slaves become farmers. At that time in New York State, black men (and only black men) needed to own $250 dollars worth of land to be eligible to vote. Brown immersed himself in this new community of black farmers and participated in a wide variety of organizing. [Read more…] about John Brown Farm Celebrates 125 Years of State Ownership
A Trip to John Brown’s Farm Near Lake Placid
A few weeks ago, on a snowy and cold Sunday, I decided to take a trip to a place in North Elba that I have been meaning to visit since I first moved to Lake Placid – John Brown Farm, the last home of the nineteenth century abolitionist. [Read more…] about A Trip to John Brown’s Farm Near Lake Placid
Pilgrimages Part of John Brown’s Farm History
Memorial Day weekend is approaching, and along with the “unofficial start of summer,” the Adirondacks will experience its annual influx of vacationers. But in years past, visitors arrived in May for another purpose: a pilgrimage to the John Brown farm in North Elba, New York. At the farm, a wreath would be laid upon the abolitionist’s grave, and the song “John Brown’s Body” was sung. [Read more…] about Pilgrimages Part of John Brown’s Farm History
John Brown Day At His Lake Placid Home Saturday
John Brown Lives! has announced “John Brown Day: A Day of Reflection. A Day of Action.” is set for May 4th, 2019 from 2 to 4 pm, at the John Brown Farm State Historic Site.
John Brown Day is a commemoration honoring women and men whose work invokes the passion and conviction of the 19th-century abolitionist who dedicated his life to the cause of liberation. [Read more…] about John Brown Day At His Lake Placid Home Saturday
John Brown Day Saturday in Lake PLacid
Aaron Mair, president of the Sierra Club; immigrant-rights organization Migrant Justice; and Don and Vivian Papson, founders of the North Country Underground Railroad Historical Association, will receive Spirit of John Brown Freedom Awards at the John Brown Day celebration on Saturday, May 6, at 2 pm.
The annual event, which is organized by North Country-based human rights and freedom education project John Brown Lives!, will be held at the John Brown Farm State Historic Site in Lake Placid. The public is welcome. [Read more…] about John Brown Day Saturday in Lake PLacid
John Brown Day Being Celebrated May 9th
A biographer who has written extensively about John Brown, a civil rights activist who marched in Selma and a memorial honoring a youth leader who introduced countless city youth to the Adirondacks will highlight John Brown Day 2015.
The annual event will be held Saturday, May 9, from 2 to 4 pm at the John Brown Farm State Historic Site in Lake Placid. It is free and open to the public. [Read more…] about John Brown Day Being Celebrated May 9th
A Good Story: The Lifeblood of a Public Historian
Almost everyone within sniffing distance of public history these days, in any capacity, is on the lookout for the silver bullet that will somehow “rescue” their particular site, or organization, or even the entire field, from the edge of a financial ruin.
For many boards and staff, technology has become the most sexy aphrodisiac around. Even though I haven’t yet seen it effectively used, partly because it becomes dated so quickly, museum and other sites continue to reach for phone tours, or apps, or touch screens, to add that extra element of engagement that will magically connect to those ever-elusive younger audiences that sites yearn to attract. [Read more…] about A Good Story: The Lifeblood of a Public Historian
Slavery And The New York State History Community
Slavery and New York State have a long history together. Indeed, the history of slavery in New York predates the birth of New York as an English and originates in the days of New Netherland, part of the extensive international slave trade.
As we are regularly reminded by events today, slavery has not disappeared. The current issue of Time includes an article on the worldwide continuance of slavery today, especially targeting young women and girls.
What does this have to do with New York history today? [Read more…] about Slavery And The New York State History Community
John Brown Day: Local Connections To Slavery
![JB Day 2014[4]](https://newyorkalmanack.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/JB-Day-20144.png)
Launching John Brown Day 2014, students from high schools across the Adirondacks will attend special screenings of 12 Years a Slave, the Academy award-winning film based on the autobiography of Solomon Northup, a free Black Adirondacker who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the mid-1800s.
Born in Minerva in 1808, Northup lived many of his early years in the region, married and made a home with his wife and their three children in Saratoga Springs. It was there in 1841 where his harrowing entrapment and subsequent enslavement on a Louisiana cotton plantation began.
Eighteen years later in October 1859 John Brown’s raid on the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, lit the spark that ignited the war that ended the chattel slavery that Northup and millions of other people of African descent endured in the United States. [Read more…] about John Brown Day: Local Connections To Slavery
John Brown Day Planned for May 5th
Frederick Douglass’ great-great-great grandson Kenneth B. Morris, Jr., will give the keynote address at the annual John Brown Day celebration to be held on Saturday, May 5, at the John Brown Farm State Historic Site in Lake Placid, NY. Morris will talk about the friendship and enduring legacy of Douglass and fellow abolitionist John Brown.
The two men first met in Massachusetts in 1848, a decade after Douglass successfully escaped from slavery on a Maryland plantation and eleven years before Brown’s history-changing raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. By the time they met, Douglass had become one of the most eloquent and sought-after champions of freedom and equal suffrage for women and men, regardless of race.
Founder and President of the Frederick Douglass Family Foundation, Morris will also discuss the Foundation’s work today to create a modern Abolitionist Movement in schools all over the country through the vehicle of Service-Learning.
There are an estimated 27 million men, women and children held in some form of slavery in the world today, generating billions of dollars along the supply chain of labor and products that make much of our daily lives possible.
Joining Morris will be Renan Salgado, a Human Trafficking Specialist based in Rochester, who will shed light in his remarks about slavery and trafficking in New York State today. According to the U.S. State Department, there are approximately 17,500 people trafficked into the U.S. each year. Along with California, Texas, and Florida, New York ranks among the states with the greatest incidence of documented slavery in the country.
Young, award-winning orators from the Frederick Douglass Student Club in Rochester will recite from Douglass’ speeches and excerpts from Brown’s letters. The folk quartet The Wannabees and the hip-hop recording artist S.A.I. will also perform.
John Brown Day revives the tradition dating back to the 1930s of making a pilgrimage to remember and honor Brown by laying a wreath at his grave. Over the last 13 years, the grassroots freedom education project John Brown Lives! has worked to keep that tradition alive and relevant.
John Brown Day 2012 is free and open to the public and it is held outdoors. A brief reception will follow in the lower barn at the site. Donations will be appreciated.
For more information, contact Martha Swan, Executive Director of John Brown Lives! at 518-962-4758 or mswan@capital.net.
Visit the John Brown Lives! Friends of Freedom on Facebook.
Climate Justice The Focus of John Brown Day
Climate Justice will be the focus of this year’s annual John Brown Day on Saturday, May 7, 2011. A tradition dating back to the 1930s, John Brown Day is held each year at the John Brown Farm State Historic Site in Lake Placid, to honor one of the nation’s most influential abolitionists on the anniversary of his birth in 1800.
Dedicating his life to eradicating slavery, Brown eventually risked all attacking the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, in 1859. Captured by troops led by Robert E. Lee and J.E.B. Stuart, Brown’s trial and execution are considered by many historians as a spark that help ignite the Civil War 150 years ago.
Climate Justice is a growing global movement that recognizes that poor and disenfranchised peoples around the world bear the least responsibility for climate change but face a disproportionate burden from its attendant effects, such as compromised health, economic hardship from rising energy costs, and displacement, destruction of property, and death due to extreme natural disasters. Here in the United States, the global campaign for Climate Justice is deeply linked to the Environmental Justice Movement, which is entering its third decade of militant opposition to environmental racism.
John Brown Day keynote speaker and Environmental Justice leader Cecil Corbin-Mark will describe the evolution of the Climate Justice Movement and give voice to the rights and concerns of the people who are usually the first and often the hardest hit by the impacts of global warming.
Corbin-Mark is Deputy Director of the Harlem-based organization, WE-ACT for Environmental Justice. In addition to his work in New York, Corbin-Mark has been active in United Nations and alternative global climate conversations from Copenhagen to Cochabamba to Cancun.
“Like slavery in antebellum America, climate change is one of the most important moral issues of our time,” said Martha Swan, director of the freedom education project John Brown Lives! which organizes the yearly event.
“Brown surely would have recognized that it is the world’s poor who disproportionately bear the brunt of climate change, so it is fitting that Climate Justice will be the focus of John Brown Day 2011. In this Sesquicentennial Year marking the start of the Civil War, we are honored that Cecil will be with us at this critical time.”
Other speakers at the annual event include David Goodman, brother of civil rights activist Andrew Goodman, murdered by the Ku Klux Klan during Mississippi Freedom Summer in
1964, Alice Kesey Mecoy, great-great-great granddaughter of John and Mary Brown, and Brother Yusef Burges. A trustee of the Children & Nature Network and an outdoor educator, Burgess will speak about the power of nature to transform youth. A frequent paddler on Adirondack waterways and former outreach and diversity coordinator for the state Department of Environmental Conservation, Burgess works to connect Albany-area youth with the natural beauty and environmental issues of the Adirondacks.
John Brown Day 2011 is possible with the cooperation of the John Brown Farm State Historic Site. The event is free and open to the public, and will be held outdoors under a tent.
For more information, contact Martha Swan, Director of John Brown Lives!, at 518-962-4758 or johnbrownlives@westelcom.com.