The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-05-26
JOHN BROWNS TANNERY.

|
1t Stands To-day as he Built in in 1926
| His Life in the Remote Pennsylvania
Back Woods-His Energy and his In
| domitable Nature-The Grave of his
| First Wife at the Old Home.
| In 1905, when John Brown was five
years old, his parents removed from Tor
rngton, Conn, where he was born, to
Hudson, Ohio. The boy worked on his
| fathers farm and learned the tanners
trade. AT the age of twenty he was
married to Dianthe Lusk. Six years
| later he located with his young wife and
small family in Richmond township,
Crawford county, Pa, then wilderness
and as yet sparsely settled. The town
ship had perhaps twenty-five families
when he settled on tract No. 1,432, con-
tanning about four hundred acres, on the
state road from Meadville to New York,
about ten miles from the railroad sta
ton of Cambridge Springs. The farm
was an unbroken forest.
Immediately on his arrival Brown
built double log house and began to
clear five-acre tract of land, which he
put under cultivation. He had come to
Crawford county to follow the tanners
business because of it's large growth of
hemlock timber. He built a tannery in
size 26x50 feet. and began tanning leath-
err for the market. This building is in as
good condition to-day as it was in 1926,
the year in which it was built 1t is a
tWo-story structure, the lower part of
stone and the upper part of wood. The
tannery contained eighteen watts of
leeches and was an important industry
for those days. When, on account of
business reverses he had to dispose of
his property, the tannery passed into the
hands of a Methodist preacher by the
name Of Butt. He sold it to Mr.. Quig-
gle, and he in turn transferred it to Nor
rison McGlory Ira H. Clark was the
next owner and was the last to use the
building for a tannery. For while it
was utilized as a cheese factory, and in
the autumn of 1888 it was converted into
jelly factory and corn-grindng mill.
A few years ago it was purchased by a
Mr.. Cannon, who converted the upper
story into a dwellinghouse and uses the
lower part as a mill for grinding corn.
The building now has a porch along the
front. 1t still has in it the original doors
and windows and frames, and in the
rear may still be seen the old clapboards
which John Brown nailed on to the
building.
Just across the road, in field, is the
spring which furnished the water for
the tannery, dwelling house and cattle,
and little distance away is the site Of
the old log house built by him. now
marked by the outlines of an irregular
foundation and a growth of underbrush
Near the spring also is the orchard, now
numbering only ten trees, planted by
his hands. The barn which he built is
still in a good state Of preservation, 1t
served for many years as station along
the underground railway" In the hay
NOV he had built room Of rough !
boards, with a trap door and proper
ventilation, around which the hay was
piled. The negro fugitive descended into !
the room by means of a step-ladder, the I,
trap-door was let down and the hay |
thrown upon it. When the slave owner |
or agent came to find his property there
was nothing which indicated that the
slave was secreted on the premises.
Eastward from the spring, in an open
field, is buried John Browns first wife,
Dianthe, who died on August 10, 1882.
An infant son, dying three days after
his mother, lies buried in the same
grave. In another grave is buried a
son. Frederick, aged four years Two
tombstones mark the r. sting places of
wife and children, around which has
been built a picket fence. His first wife,
Dianthe, bore him seven children, and
his second wife Mary Day, whom he
married a year later, was the mother Of
thirteen children. Five of his twenty
children were born in Richmond town (
ship.
During the nine years he lived there
he was regarded as one of its leading
and most public-spirited citizens. He
did an extensive business, and had con-
stantly in his employ from five to fifteen
II f,-,,,, ta1 ~ he