GALLERY

This is a photograph of Owen and Jason Brown, sons of John Brown, at their homestead in the foothills above Pasadena.

Caption and photographer information along the bottom: "No. 242. John Brown's Sons, Jacen and Owen. Garden City Foto Co. Los Angeles."

There is a name handwritten on the back: "T J Preston." While we cannot verify this, Google AI Overview tells us that T.J. Preston was a friend of Owen Brown and attended his funeral.

UNMOUNTED.

SIZE. Approximately 4 7/16 x 7 3/8 inches.

CONDITION. Tiny spots and specks. Wear around edges and at corners. Creases. Back has spots, some soiling, a stain, and some foxing.

APPEARANCE. Very good tones. Lots of details.

OWEN BROWN. "Owen Brown (November 4, 1824 – January 8, 1889) was the third son of abolitionist John Brown. He participated more in his father's anti-slavery activities than did any of his siblings. He was the only son to participate both in the Bleeding Kansas activities — specifically the Pottawatomie massacre, during which he killed a man — and his father's raid on Harpers Ferry. He was the only son of Brown present in Tabor, Iowa, when Brown's recruits were trained and drilled. He was also the son who joined his father in Chatham, Ontario, Canada, when the raid was planned; he was chosen as treasurer of the organization of which his father was made president... Owen was 'generous to a fault, giving poorer neighbors all that he earns except the merest pittance for his own simple wants.'" (source: Wikipedia)

JASON BROWN (1823 - 1912). "According to Lisa Robinson, author of 'Jason Brown Ben Lomond Mountain Resident, Flying Machine Experimentalist, Son of John Brown,' he moved to Ben Lomond Mountain around 1896, and his cabin was the epitome of simple living. The cabin was thrown together with boards, there were no panes on his windows and no doors. His chairs were boxes and his bed was a bunk of boards. His lifestyle tells you a lot, he was a minimalistic, humble, and private man. An avid pacifist, abolitionist (he was the son of the famous abolitionist John Brown), and dreamer the residents of Ben Lomond regarded him as a character. In the 1850s, before arriving in the Santa Cruz County area, Jason Brown experimented with, as his father describes, 'a ship that was to sail the air'. He rarely spoke to anyone about it for fear of being seen as a crank, but his idea was based on the movements of birds and utilizing a lighter version of a steam engine. This was all thought of a century before the Wright brothers took flight at Kitty Hawk! At the ripe age of 90, Jason Brown passed away on a trip to New York in 1912. Alice Wilder, Jason's adopted daughter, visited his home after his death, and asked his landlord if parts of an airplane had been found. He disbelievingly responded, 'I don't know, but there are all sorts of things scattered around this hillside, including a steam boiler with hand fittings'." (source: Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History website)

OWEN AND JASON IN CALIFORNIA. "Owen, along with his older brother Jason, younger sister Ruth and her husband Henry Thompson, relocated to Pasadena during the 1880s at the urging of Major Horatio Nelson Rust, by then a successful businessman and horticulturist whose family knew and admired the Brown family as fellow abolitionists in Massachusetts. Pasadena had been founded a decade earlier by Union supporters from the Midwest, and so John Brown's children were welcomed as heroes.... Ruth and Henry established their home in Pasadena. Owen and Jason homesteaded a parcel in the foothills above, in what is now the unincorporated community of Altadena's 'Meadows' neighborhood. They cut trails and roads, establishing rights of way that are still in use today, and built a cabin that became a magnet for visitors anxious to pay homage to these two sons of 'The Liberator,' John Brown, and particularly to Owen as the last survivor of the raid on Harpers Ferry." (source: Owen Brown Gravesite website)