Flip to The earliest known photograph of Wheatland, James Buchanan's home in Lancaster, PA, circa 1865.Close Window
Credit: Library of Congress
In the summer of 1859, abolitionist firebrand John Brown took up residence in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, and there prepared for his startling October raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. The raid failed, but further polarized the North and South. Executed on December 2 after his conviction on charges of murder, treason, and conspiring with slaves to rebel, Brown became a martyr for the Abolitionist cause and portent of the greater violence soon to come.
