Behind the Marker
John Brown (1800-1859) is best known for his failed raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. But John Brown was a businessman as well as a revolutionary. This marker serves as an important reminder that the abolitionist was not always the commercial failure that popular legend suggests.


According to biographer Stephen Oates, Brown was the first entrepreneur, or independent businessman, in New Richmond, Pennsylvania. To build a small factory with fifteen employees was an impressive accomplishment and his neighbors recognized his abilities by treating him as a respectable citizen and community leader. Although he was already an outspoken abolitionist, Brown served as the town's postmaster for seven years. He ran a private school for local children. He even organized religious services conducted in his tannery.


But his business eventually did encounter setbacks. Then he became severely ill. So did others in his family. He lost a child and his wife. During this trying period, Brown became "more and more unfit for everything." His neighbors tried to help, sending a housekeeper to help care for his five surviving children. Before long, he recovered his composure and remarried, to a sixteen-year-old girl, but he could not save his tannery. In 1835, Brown moved his family to Ohio, hoping for better luck. He never again found much financial success, but he became increasingly determined to make his mark in the campaign against slavery.