Flanders House (NYS Route 73)

The first house occupied by John Brown and his family was called the Cone Flanders house and was located on Route 73, nearly opposite the road junction to Adirondack Loj. A later administrator of the John Brown Historic Site noted that when John Brown rented the farm, between 1849 and 1851, it was owned by Chapin Flanders, father of Cone. Later it was known as the Cyrus Taylor place. It burned well before 1936.

The John Brown Farm State Historic Site (From NYS Route 73 bear left onto the Old Military Road, and turn immediately left onto the John Brown Road, following it to the end)

It was John Brown's wish to be buried on his North Elba Farm.

The funeral cortege reached North Elba at sunset on December 7, 1859.

A description by the Friends,

"Our path lay along the track that we had traveled upon on the first evening of our arrival...Descending from a steep bank from this point, two hundred feet to the bed of the AuSable, we cross on some narrow boards from boulder to boulder, and climbing an equal altitude on the opposite side, we find ourselves on the outer boundary of John Brown's clearing."

"It consists of a circular patch of about 60 acres, cleared in the midst of a primeval forest, covered over with blackened stumps, and devoted to grass, buckwheat, oats, and potatoes. About one hundred yards west of the point where we entered, was a large labradorite, which was, perhaps, ten feet in diameter, and six or seven feet above the ground. At the western edge of this boulder was John Brown's grave, placed there by his own direction. The death of his two sons inscribed on it by his own hand. Oliver's death at Harper's Ferry, and his own execution, are also inscribed on it."

"After examining the grave, we went into his cabin, which has recently received the addition of another room, and the logs of the original building have been covered by clap-boards through the liberality of his Boston friends."

"We were received by the widow very courtesy, who exhibited to us many interesting souvenirs of the departed. She is a woman of a massive frame, and appeared energetic and decided. Her son Salmon, and her daughters, Mary and Ellen, are now resided at North Elba."

"The latter showed us a bible, which her father presented to her, and permitted us to copy the inscription on the fly leaf: 'This Bible, presented to my dearly beloved daughter Ellen Brown, is not intended for common use, but to be carefully preserved for her, and by her, in remembrance of her father, (of whose care and attention she was deprived in her infancy), he being absent in the territory of Kansas, from the summer of 1855..." Friends' Intelligencer

A group headed by the journalist Kate Field purchased the property from a local farmer in 1870. Their purpose was to preserve the site as a memorial to John Brown. In 1895 the farm was given to New York State as an historic site and is now a National Historic Landmark site.