John Brown Tannery
Richmond Township, Crawford County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
John Brown of Ossawatomie and Harper's Ferry worked here as a tanner, 1825-35. The nearby house was then his home. His first wife and son are buried near.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Long before he became the nation's most famous abolitionist, John Brown worked as a tanner in this corner of Crawford County from 1825 to 1835, living in a house nearby. It was here, in his early adulthood, that he built a family and a livelihood before the antislavery crusade that would carry him to Bleeding Kansas and, in 1859, to the raid on Harpers Ferry. His first wife and a son are buried close by.
Why it matters
The tannery grounds the towering figure of John Brown in an ordinary working life, marking the Pennsylvania years of the man whose raid helped push the nation toward civil war over slavery.
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Related people
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
John Brown's Tannery
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Long before he became the nation's most incendiary abolitionist, John Brown was a working tanner in the northwestern Pennsylvania woods. From 1825 to 1835 he ran this tannery and raised his family here, employing as many as fifteen men to turn hides into leather. The frontier decade shaped the man whose 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry would help push a divided country toward civil war.
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