REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF FISHERIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 47 1 



now records the death of John Brown at Harper's Ferry; and below this is a third 

 inscription recording the death of OHver Brown, who was also killed there. On the 

 reverse of the stone is the epitaph of Frederick Brown, who was "murdered" in 

 Kansas. Watson Brown, another son who was killed in the fight at Harper's Ferry, 

 is also buried in the enclosure, his remains having been recovered from an anatomical 

 museum twenty years after his death, and brought home to North Elba. 



The most noticeable feature of the burial plot is the inscription chiselled in large 

 letters on a slope of the massive granite outcrop, a stony ledge which nearly fills the 

 small enclosure. Here in large, deeply cut characters, appear the words 



JOHN BROWN 

 1859 



There is something about this gray and rugged rock, with its simple but deeply 

 graven letters, that appeals to the sentiment of every visitor. It is strongly suggestive 

 of Brown's character, and makes a fitting and impressive memorial. 



In 1886, Colonel Francis L. Lee, of Boston, Mass., made a journey to North Elba, 

 taking with him a skillful stone-cutter, who, acting under Colonel Lee's instructions, cut 

 the large and deeply furrowed letters and figures in the rock. The hard, fiinty nature 

 of the stone made the work exceedingly difficult, and several days were consumed in the 

 task. The inscription will stand for centuries, and be eligible long after the bronze 

 and marble epitaphs of to-day shall have been erased by the hand of Time. 



A good description of the homestead and surrounding country was written by 

 Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who visited the place immediately after Brown's 

 capture at Harper's Ferry. In describing the spot, the house, and the family life 

 that once existed within its hospitable doors, he said : 



" The traveler into the enchanted land of the Adirondacks has his choice of two 

 routes from Keeseville to the Lower Saranac Lake, where his out-door life is to begin. 

 The one least frequented and most difficult should be selected, for it has the grandest 

 mountain pass that the Northern States can show. After driving twenty-two miles 

 of mountain road from Keeseville, past wild summits bristling with stumps, and through 

 villages where every other man is black from the iron foundry, and every alternate one 

 black from the charcoal pit, your pathway makes a turn at the little hamlet of 

 Wilmington, and you soon find \'ourself facing a wall of mountain, with only glimpses 

 of one wild gap through which you must penetrate. In two miles more you have 

 passed the last house this side of the Notch, and you then drive on over a rugged 

 way, constantly ascending, with no companion but the stream which ripples and roars 

 below. Soon the last charcoal clearing is past, and thick woods of cedar and birch 

 close around you — the high mountain on your right comes nearer and nearer, and 

 close beside, upon your left, are glimpses of a wall, black and bare as iron, rising sheer 



