Grave of Altadena abolitionist to receive historical landmark status after 35-year effort

On the day the grave of Owen Brown became protected, historian Michele Zack hiked the short path to an obscure hilltop above Altadena where the abolitionist was laid to rest.

“I came up here on that afternoon to tell Owen the news,” said Zack on Thursday, Feb. 29. “I wanted him to know. I said: ‘You are an L.A. County monument.’ “

On Tuesday, Feb. 27, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously nominated the Owen Brown Gravesite as a Los Angeles County historic landmark. It is expected that the Los Angeles County Historical Landmark and Records Commission will approve the designation, said Zack, an author of three books, an expert on Altadena history, and chair of the Owen Brown Gravesite Committee.

To say Zack, and John Burton, the committee’s vice chair, were ecstatic about the board’s motion is an understatement. The committee worked five years for this designation. Altadena Heritage has been waiting 35 years, after being turned down for historic landmark status by the Commission in 1989.

“It is an auspicious day to honor California’s free-state legacy,” Zack told the board.

Dad and son

Owen Brown, the son of famous abolitionist John Brown, fought with his father and a ragtag group of 21 called “God’s Army” to raid the U.S. arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Va., in October 1859, in an attempt to provoke a slave revolt in the southern states. The raid failed and John Brown was arrested and executed, but Owen Brown escaped.

Brown became a fugitive for the next 20 years, living in Michigan and upstate New York before settling in Pasadena and then Altadena at the bequest of Pasadena abolitionist Horatio Nelson Rust, said Zack. “He got word to him that in Pasadena, you’ll be safe; everybody thinks you are a hero.” Pasadena was founded by abolitionists and former union soldiers in 1874, making it a safe place for Owen Brown.

John Brown’s actions, with the help of Owen and other family members, included previous violent raids. He participated in the Pottawatomie massacre in Kansas Territory in 1856, where John Brown and his family fought against slave owners.

Brown’s actions became legendary and many historians say they led up to the outbreak of the Civil War. Union soldiers rushing into battle sang this marching song for inspiration: “John Brown’s body lies a-molderin’ in the grave, John Brown’s body lies a-molderin’ in the grave, John Brown’s body lies a-molderin’ in the grave. His soul goes marching on!”

“His family and himself sacrificed more to end slavery than any other White family,” Zack said. “Black people, of course, sacrificed a lot more.”

John Brown, who had 20 children, was White, an evangelical Christian who believed slavery was “a blood sin” and against the promise of America, Zack said. He was determined, single-minded, and often called insane. He practiced violence in attempts to free the slaves, even going against the wishes of Frederick Douglass, a prominent freed slave and anti-slavery orator and statesman who had the ear of President Abraham Lincoln.

“Do you think 21 people, so called God’s Army, could free all the slaves? It was an act (Harper’s Ferry raid) of courage or insanity, depending on how you looked at it,” Zack said.

Owen Brown was said to be his father’s right-hand man. Historians say of all his siblings, he most resembled his father. His warrant for arrest in 1859 described him as “33 or 34 years of age, about six feet in height, fair complexion, though somewhat freckled — has red hair” and also “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 into town in Pasadena packing six guns, but in these communities they were left alone and not pursued by the law, she said.

He died in 1889, probably of pneumonia, after walking home in the rain from a temperance meeting, Zack said. He was buried on a hilltop called Little Round Top near his cabin, in the shadow of Brown Mountain named after his father. About 2,000 people attended his funeral at a Pasadena church, she said.

Gravesite battles

Nine years later, Rust helped create a new gravestone because the wooden one was eroding. In the next 120 years, that gravestone was lost, stolen, hidden and eventually put back on the grave, Zack said.

The headstone reads: “Owen Brown, son of John Brown The Liberator, Died Jan. 9, 1889, Aged: 64 yrs.” Clearly the son and the father remained interlinked, even in death.

Getting the gravesite established for public viewing took decades.

Someone knocked the grave marker down the hill but it was found, intact. A previous landowner attempted to bar public access to the gravesite with a “No Trespassing” sign, resulting in a 2006 ruling affirming the public has legal access to the site.

In 2002, the marker went missing for 10 years. In 2012, Ian White, son of prominent Black artist Charles White, who lived in Altadena Meadows, found the missing gravestone in the mud on a walk near his home, Zack said. The marker was kept in an undisclosed location for about 10 years, because Ian White wanted to wait for a friendly landowner.

The land was privately owned and slated for a school, as part of the La Vina housing development of the 1990s. An agreement from new landowner, Tim Cantwell, moved the project forward. Cantwell got permission to build more homes below the hilltop and in turn, allowed the non-contiguous 5.2 acres containing the grave to be preserved. Cantwell also agreed to give Altadena Heritage $300,000 for the site’s restoration and for education programs about John Brown, Owen Brown and Pasadena’s anti-slavery history.

By 2022, the gravestone was back in place and new benches have been added. Interpretive signs tell the story of Owen Brown. One display tells about Robert Owens, a Black man who helped emancipate Black people illegally being held as slaves in San Bernardino in 1856. They were taken to a hideout in the Santa Monica Mountains and freed by local law enforcement.

The groups involved with the gravesite restoration wanted to include stories of Pasadena and Altadena’s anti-slavery heritage, as well as honor Owen Brown. A short documentary with animation is in the works to show to school children, Zack said.

A monument for today

The gravesite will be managed by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy group, once the designation is confirmed. The committee wants to go for state and federal historic designations next.

The intricacies of history were not lost on Zack, who is writing a new book on Los Angeles and the run-up to the Civil War. She said John and Owen Brown’s story is controversial. “Some people ask: How can we honor anyone who did a raid on our national armory?”

Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said at the meeting that a monument to someone who fought against slavery is a rarity in California.

“California has more monuments with names and places named for the Confederacy than any other free state. It seems like we should redress the balance,” Zack said.

Zack said the historical landmark to Owen Brown is valid today, more than 150 years after the end of America’s bloodiest war.

“I feel the legacy of the Civil War is still with us,” she said. “Some people are predicting a new one.”