Up until 1776, the Public Universal Friend has been known as Jemima Wilkinson, a spirited if not incredibly precocious young Quaker woman from Cumberland, Rhode Island. In the year 1776, at the age of 24, she succumbed to a terrible illness—likely…

Like Lyman Epps, Sr., James Henderson hailed from Troy, New York and migrated to Timbucto. Henderson left Troy with his wife, Susan, and five children in 1848 and they became some of the first African American settlers in North Elba. He was a cobbler…

In 1849, Lyman Epps, Sr. left Troy, New York with his wife, Anna, and two kids. The family set out on a journey to establish a new home in the Adirondack Mountains. Epps, Sr. was one of the three thousand grantees given untouched land by Gerrit…

Approximately one mile north of the John Brown Farmhouse is a small rural cemetery scattered with marble headstones. Carved into two of those headstones in the North Elba Cemetery are the names of one of the earliest settlers of Timbucto and one of…

One of John Brown’s final requests upon his death was that his body be taken back to North Elba, New York to be buried on his farm. After being executed on December 2, 1859 for his role in the raid on Harpers Ferry, Brown’s widow, Mary, retrieved…

Two years after Gerrit Smith announced his settlement plans in North Elba, New York, John Brown visited Smith at his home in Peterboro, New York in 1848. At the time Brown was embroiled in a failing wool brokerage business in Springfield,…