The "John Brown Farm 



very interesting, especially by reason of its rare 

 plants and successive zones of Northern vegetation. 



In Keene Valley I made the acquaintance of "Old A noted 

 Mountain Phelps," the shrewd and picturesque guide 

 guide celebrated by Charles Dudley Warner. Among 

 other eccentricities, Phelps would never allow a 

 camp to be made in sight of Marcy. "You must 

 never hog down scenery," he said. 



On one of my several Adirondack trips, tramping 

 across the North Woods, I came out through the 

 forests of North Elba to the old "John Brown Farm." 

 Here Brown lived for many years, and here, away 

 from political influences, he tried to establish a 

 colony of freed slaves. Here, too, his family re- 

 mained while he took part in the bloody conflicts 

 that made and kept Kansas free. 



The little house stands near the edge of the great 

 woods "in a sightly place," as they say there, away 

 from the sheltering trees. At the foot of the hill 

 the Au Sable small, clear, cold, and full of trout 

 flows in a broad curve. Not far above, the river 

 rises in the dark Indian Pass, the only place in the 

 Adirondacks where the ice of winter lasts all summer 

 long; from under it the Au Sable bursts out on one 

 side, the infant Hudson on the other. 



In a fenced-in plot before the dwelling John "John 

 Brown's body still "lies a-molde ring" not even 

 in a separate grave, for his bones rest with those of 

 his father, and the short record of the son's life and 

 death is crowded on the elder Brown's tombstone. 

 But near by uprears a huge, wandering boulder, 

 ten feet or more in diameter, torn off years ago by 

 the glaciers from the granite hills that hem in the 

 pass, and on its upper surface, in letters which can 



3 



