The day Owen Brown’s tomb was preserved, historian Mitchell Zack extended a small path for a vague hill over Altadeena, where the elimination was placed to rest.
“I came here that afternoon to tell Owen the news,” Zack said on 29 February on Thursday. “I wanted to know her.” I said: ‘You are a la county monument.’ ,
On Tuesday, 27 February, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Board unanimously nominated Owen Brown Grawite as Los Angeles County Historical Landmark. It is expected that the Los Angeles County County Historical Landmark and Records Commission will approve the designation, Jack said, a writer of three books, an expert in History, and Chairman of Owen Brown Gravisite Committee.
Zac, and John Burton, the vice -chairman of the committee, was happy about the board’s proposal, an understanding. The committee worked for five years for this designation. After the Commission’s stunning for the historic landmark status in 1989, Altadena Heritage is waiting for 35 years.
“This is an auspicious day to honor California’s free-state heritage,” Jack told the board.
- Dad and son
- Battle of tombs
- A monument for today
Dad and son
Owen Brown, son of the famous elimination John Brown, fought a fight with his father and a ragtag group of 21, called the “Gods Army”, which in October 1859 Harper’s Ferry, Wa. To raid the American arsenal, a slave was in an attempt to incite a slave rebellion in the southern states. The raid failed and John Brown was arrested and carried out, but Owen fled to Brown.
Zack said Brown for the next 20 years became a fugitive for the next 20 years, staying in Michigan and before settling in Pasadena, New York and then Altadena said in the will of Pasadeena Ebolato Horatio Nelson Rust. “He found the word that in Pasadeena, you will be safe; Everyone thinks that you are a hero. Pasadena was founded in 1874 by eliminations and former Union soldiers, making it a safe place for Owen Brown.
With the help of Owen and other family members, the works of John Brown included previous violent raids. He participated in the Pottavatomi massacre in the Kansas region in 1856, where John Brown and his family fought against slave owners.
Brown’s actions became mythological and many historians say they lead the wrath of civil war. While running in war, the soldiers of the Sangh sang this marching song for inspiration: “John Brown’s body lies one-molder in the tomb, John Brown’s body is one-molderin in the grave, John Brown’s body is one-molderin in the grave. His soul marchs!”
“His family and themselves sacrificed more to end slavery than any other white family,” Jack said. “Black people, of course, made too much sacrifice.”
John Brown, who had 20 children, white, an gonch Christian, who believed that slavery was “a blood sin” and against the US promise, Zac said. It was determined, single-mind, and often called crazy. He practiced violence in efforts to free slaves, even going against the wishes of Frederick Douglas, a major free slave and anti -slavery orator and politicians who had the ear of President Abraham Lincoln.
“Do you think 21 people, the so -called God’s army, can free all slaves? It was an act of courage or insanity (raiding a Harper’s boat), depending on how you saw it,” Zack said.
Owen Brown was called his father’s right hand man. Historians say about all their brothers and sisters, he was like his father. His warrant for arrest in 1859 described him as “33 or 34 years of age, about six feet height, fair color, although somewhat fryckled – the red hair of somewhat fryckled” and “deep blue eyes”.
Around 1881, Brown and his brother, Jason, settled in Altadena Meadows in the foothills. Zack said he and his brother would go to the city in Pasadena, packing six guns in the city, but they were left alone in these communities and were not chased by law, he said.
Zack said that in 1889, perhaps after pneumonia, after a weed meeting, after walking home in the rain, Jack said. He was buried on a hill called Little Round Top near his cabin, which was in the shadow of a brown mountain in his father’s name. Around 2,000 people attended his funeral in a Pasadena Church, he said.
Battle of tombs
Nine years later, Rust helped to create a new gravstone because a wood was disappeared. In the next 120 years, that gravity was lost, stolen, hidden and eventually returned to the tomb, Zack said.
Headstone reads: “John Brown’s son Owen Brown died on January 9, 1889, aged: 64 years.” The son and father were clearly involved in death.
The cemetery established in public was taken in decades.
Somebody knocked on a serious marker under the hill but it was found, it was intact. A previous zamindar attempted to prevent public access to the cemetery with a “no -scusping” sign, resulting in a legal access to the site to confirm the public with the 2006 decision.
In 2002, the marker went missing for 10 years. Jack said in 2012, Ian White, son of lead black artist Charles White, who lived in Altadena Meadows, found the missing gravity in the mud on a walk near his house. The marker was placed in an unknown place for about 10 years, as Ian White wanted to wait for a friendly landowner.
The land was privately owned and slate for a school as part of the 1990s La Vina Housing Development. An agreement by Tim Cantwell, the new zamindar, carried forward the project. Cantwells were allowed to build more houses under the hilltop and in turn, allowed to preserve the grave in non-transit 5.2 acres. Cantwell also agreed to restore the site and give $ 300,000 to Altadena Heritage for education programs about John Brown, Owen Brown and Pasadeena’s anti -slavery history.
By 2022, Gravstone was back in place and new benches have been added. Explanatory signs tell the story of Owen Brown. A display tells about Robert Owens, a black person who helped embodies black people being illegally organized as a slave in San Bernardino in 1856. He was taken to a hideout in Santa Monica Mountains and was freed by local law enforcement.
Gravite restoration groups were to include stories of Pasadeena and Altadena’s anti -slavery heritage, as well as honor Owen Brown. A small documentary with animation works to show school children, Zack said.
A monument for today
Once the designation is confirmed, the cemetery will be managed by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy Group. The committee wants to go for the next state and federal historical designations.
History’s intricacies were not lost on Zac, which is writing a new book and The Run-up to the Civil War on Los Angeles. He said that the story of John and Owen Brown is controversial. “Some people ask: How can we honor anyone who raided our national arsenal?”
Supervisor Lindsay Horwath said in the meeting that a memorial for someone fighting against slavery is a rareness in California.
“California has more monuments with names and places of Confederassi than any other free state. It seems that we should redress the balance, ”Jack said.
Zack said that the historic milestone for Owen Brown is still valid, which is more than 150 years after the end of America’s most bloodless war.
“I think the legacy of the Civil War is still with us,” he said. “Some people are predicting a new.”