John Brown was born on May 9, 1800 in Torrington , Conn. His father was a tanner, farmer, and a shoemaker who had 16 children by three wives. The Browns moved to Ohio in 1805. Young John was fond of animals and had many different pets, but he learned how to cure hides. He disliked what schooling he had. As a son of a radical abolitionist, John believed that black slavery was a sin against Christianity.      He lived in a station on the Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania, a secret network to aid fugitive slaves. When he moved to New York, he settled his family in a black community. By the time Brown reached his fifties, he decided that force was the only way to end slavery. In 1854, several of his sons settled in Osawatomie, in Kansas Territory. Brown sent all the weapons he had with them in hopes they could end the slavery problems in Kansas. Brown helped his sons in the bloody battles that helped make Kansas a free state (one of his sons was killed in a melee). In May of 1856, Brown led a small group of men who sought revenge on pro slavery mobs. They drug five settlers out of their houses and brutally mutilated them with swords. He became feared as " Old Osawatomie Brown," a ruthless leader pitted against slave holders.

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