Barber's Point (Barber Road)

Barber's Point was the site of Raymond's Mill, the first permanent settlement in the town of Westport. The Barber family arrived soon after the Revolutionary War and their descendants still live on the point. One of the Barber farmhouses is today recognized as a Century Farm.

It is unclear whether the old sail ferry landed on the exposed lake side of Barber's Point or in the more protected bay on the north side of Barber's Point, called Young's Bay. Depending upon the vagaries of the wind, a sail ferry might land a good distance away from its intended port. Young's Bay was where Alexander Young built the sailing ship, Emperior, in 1810 at his shipyard on the north shore of this small bay. Before the lighthouse was built on the point in 1873, an old log cabin occupied the knoll and was occupied at various times by the ferry operator.

On the day of the funeral cortege, a sleigh was sent from Westport to meet the ferry so that no time was lost in transit. It is said that the driver was a Mr. Millholland who drove through the day to reach Elizabethtown.

1816 Stone Schoolhouse (Dudley Road)

As the funeral party passed the old stone school on the Camp Dudley Road, the cortege received much attention from the school children. The school was built in 1816 and served Westport as School No. 8 until 1916. The school had a library of 84 books, many of them texts. Miss Elizabeth Stevenson was the teacher with 24 students typically attending class. The children present on that fateful day would take the memory of that cortege with them for the rest of their lives.

Today, the schoolhouse survives under the care of the Town of Westport. It is a wonderful spot to view the surrounding countryside and the distant Adirondack Mountains. Here you can appreciate the magnitude of the journey facing the small funeral cortege.

Person's Hotel (NYS Route 22)

As the funeral cortege arrived in the center of Westport Village, they rested and took lunch at Person's Hotel (later called Lake View House) on what is now the Library Lawn. The innkeeper, Harry J. Person, knew John Brown from several years of association and they had friendly arguments over Brown's political beliefs.

The citizens of Westport were divided and seriously conflicted over the politics surrounding the abolition of slavery in the southern states. As early as 1844, a visiting abolitionist, Reverend Able Brown was harassed by thugs throwing eggs and hurling insults after an anti-slavery speech. The opponents did not even spare the women. While leaving the church, Mrs. Brown and the other women were hit by eggs. The local Whig and Locofoco Party members were strong and vocal opponents of abolition. The Northwest Bay Road (NYS Route 9N)

When sleet turned to rain, the men in Westport changed from sleighs to wagons for the remainder of the trip. Just west of the village, the funeral party entered the old Northwest Bay Road, a turnpike road with miles of ruts and mud, covered at points with planks and stretches of corduroy road.

Just outside of Westport, the Toll Gate house site is now marked with a historical marker. This is a good spot to stop and note how far the funeral party had traveled from Vergennes in a half day.

Although the seven miles to Elizabethtown were on a toll road, there is no record of any public conveyance or hotel charging the Brown cortege for anything during the entire trip. The stretch from Westport to Elizabethtown was certainly not the worst that the funeral cortege would encounter. In fact, most parts were gentle enough to allow a train roadbed to be built over much of the route of the toll road around 1910. The unused rail bed is visible today adjacent to the present state highway.

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