John Brown State Historical Site

The park where this historical site is located was the scene of the largest single battle in the Bleeding Kansas phase of American history, when pro- and anti-slavery people flooded into the Kansas Territory ahead of a vote on whether the South's Peculiar Institution would be a part of the future state's legacy. (It was not.) John Brown, later to gain fame for an unsuccessful raid on the US Armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia before moulderin' in his grave, came as part of that influx of voters, and after the sacking of Lawrence, Kansas by pro-slavery forces, Brown got up a bunch of anti-slavery settlers and retaliated with the Pottawatomie Massacre. The park in Osawatomie contains the cabin of the Adair family, relatives of Brown's. He "hid out" in plain sight there for a couple of years before going on to greater acclaim or notoriety.