FISHERIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 485 



He followed tanning and land surveying in his Ohio home until 1826; then 

 removing to Richmond, Pa., he pursued the same avocation until 1855, when he 

 returned to Ohio and continued in the same business, adding thereto dealing in land, 

 which he followed until 1839. The panic of 1837 ruined him as a land speculator, 

 and in 1839, returning again to Hudson, Ohio, where his father, Owen Brown, still 

 lived, he began sheep raising and wool business. Of a hopeful, sanguine temperament, 

 and a restless, migratory disposition, he could not wait for prosperity or fortune to 

 come to him, but sought it wherever he saw the best prospects. 



About this period the belief, or infatuation, that he had a divinely appointed 

 special mission to perform had taken strong hold of him. The loud moans and 

 plaintive calls for help and deliverance of millions in hopeless, helpless thraldom were 

 ringing in his ears. 



His daily prayers for the relief of the oppressed and down-trodden bondsmen grew 

 stronger and more earnest, even to a degree that at times his righteous soul almost 

 indignantly questioned the wisdom and justice of the Almighty. 



He had already confided to his wife his plans for the rescue of slaves and the 

 destruction of slavery, and had her sympathy and consent, although she fully 

 understood that it meant the consecration of the lives of the whole family to the cause, 

 and, perhaps, the ruin and destruction of their happy home. 



.In 1843, he moved to Akron, Ohio, where he was sadly afflicted by the death of 

 several of his family; and, in 1846, to Springfield, Mass., where he went to act as 

 agent of the sheep and wool men of the Western Reserve. Again his business was a 

 failure, as may ha\e been expected of a man whose mind and strength were now 

 being wholly given to devising methods and means for inaugurating the conflict of 

 force and arms through which he hoped to crush the powerful institution of slavery. 



His various schemes for the liberation of the slaves had now ripened and taken 

 shape, and he had about him men who had become strongly attached to him and 

 thoroughly imbued with his own ideas and visionary schemes. These he kept on the 

 lookout for others who could be trusted and used by him as leaders in the intended 

 raids he had planned and the insurrections which he hoped to incite and successfully 

 carry out. They also assisted in the helping of fugitives, a business in which he was 

 always active. 



He visited England in 1848-9, ostensibly to advance his wool interests, but really 

 to look for financial assistance, and to study the situation there in reference to his 

 coming onslaught on the slave power. 



His hope of securing wealth with which to wage war at his own expense had failed, 

 and from this time on his operations were carried on principally through the financial 

 aid of zealous abolitionists, whose faith in John Brown's honesty was unbounded. 



