486 RErORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



He found it impossible to find any colored man of suitable character, ability, and 

 coura_s;e to make leaders. His trusty sons he had reared and trained for the fray; 

 but he needed colored men of the "Nat Turner" type to go among their fellows in 

 bondage, and incite insurrection and rebellion, and lead them in a fight for liberty. 



On his return from Europe, in 1849, he learned that Gerrit Smith, who had large 

 holdings in this Adirondack region, had conceived the scheme of giving small farms 

 to such colored men as would occupy and cultivate the same, and that quite a colony 

 had already located here in North Elba, under the apparently kind offer of that famous 

 abolitionist. I say apparently kind offer, with all due deference to the good man now 

 gone, because of the unwelcome and perhaps uncharitable thought which has always 

 crowded itself upon me (and especially since coming to North Elba), that had Gerrit 

 Smith fully understood the situation and better appreciated the necessities and 

 character of the poor colored people whom he wished to befriend, he would have 

 located them upon some of the more fertile lands which he held in Oneida, Oswego, 

 Madison and other lower counties, rather than in the rocky hills and mountains of 

 frigid old Essex. But he doubtless had his own reasons, other than economical, for 

 the selection of this then far out of the way spot for the trial of his philanthropic 

 experiment, and we will not criticise the acts and motives of the noble-hearted Gerrit 

 Smith, who for so many years and at such a large expense maintained that famous 

 line, that close corporation of which John Ikown was also an active member, known 

 as the "Underground Railroad," which, during the dark days of the enforcement of 

 the hated Fugitive Slave Law, conveyed safely so many men and women from slavery 

 to freedom. Here in North Elba, in the fastness of these Adirondack mountains 

 and lakes, and right where we now stand, was a well-known, well-guarded station of 

 that celebrated subterranean line, a sort of half-way place, where the poor, exhausted 

 fugitive could rest and recuperate without fear of his pursuers. 



Brown, hoping to make this scheme of Gerrit Smith's forward his own plans, 

 applied for and received this farm, and settled here as one of the colony, cleared off a 

 part of this land, and made this wild and beautiful spot and this plain old house his 

 home from 1849 until his death, when, through the wishes of his family, it became the 

 burial-place of his bruised and mangled body ; and now, through the kind offices of 

 noble friends and admirers, who long since purchased and held it as a sacred spot 

 consecrated to his memory, it becomes his eternal resting-place, to be perpetually 

 guarded, protected and cared for by the great commonwealth of the State of New 

 York, whose high and honored official representatives are here to-day to formally 

 accept the trust and take possession of these historic premises. 



Whether or not John Brown realized his hope of organizing his colored neighbors 

 for armed operations against his sworn enemy, I am not informed ; but from this 



