Mary Ann Day Brown
American abolitionist (1816–1884)
Mary Ann Day Brown (April 15, 1816 – February 29, 1884) was the second wife of abolitionist John Brown, leader of a raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia (since 1863, West Virginia), who attempted to start a campaign of liberating enslaved people in the South. Married at age 17, Mary raised 5 stepchildren and an additional 13 children born during her marriage. She supported her husband's activities by managing the family farm while he was away, which he often was. Mary and her husband helped enslaved African Americans escape slavery via the Underground Railroad. The couple lived in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and in the abolitionist settlement of North Elba, New York. After the execution of her husband, she moved to California and became a pioneer of development there.
Early life
Mary Ann Day was born on April 15, 1816, in Granville in Washington County, New York, to Mary and Charles Day, a farmer and blacksmith. When she was a young girl, she moved with her parents to Meadville in Crawford County, Pennsylvania.
When she was sixteen, she occasionally came to abolitionist John Brown's house in New Richmond, Pennsylvania, to work on the spinning wheel. Her sister was his housekeeper.
“Mary Ann Day Brown” enters the record as american abolitionist (1816–1884). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Mary, Brown and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mary Ann Day Brown” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.