Page:John Brown (1899).pdf/39

 been offered him in New England. This bankrupted him again, and really ended his commercial career. The very same wool which he carried to England was bought to be shipped back to America, and was so shipped. It was one of the most picturesque failures of a bold stroke of business on record.

After this Brown removed with his family to North Elba, in the Adirondack mountains of northern New York, where he was interested in an experiment which Gerrit Smith, the rich abolitionist and philanthropist, was making in the settling of negroes on wild land.

North Elba continued to be the home of Brown's family until after his death, though he himself lived there very little. The wanderings of his apostolate, following his mercantile travels, had now begun. Thenceforth he farmed and shepherded here and there to supply his own and his family's immediate needs. There are indications, in his