Happy 220th birthday John Brown! Born #OTD, May 9, 1800, this famous abolitionist led an 1859 raid of a federal arsenal in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, in the hopes of igniting a nationwide slave revolt. Using the alias “Isaac Smith,” he rented a farmhouse in Washington County, MD, to serve as headquarters as he and his followers gathered weapons and studied local maps in preparation for the attack. The H. Furlong Baldwin Library has in its collections a letterbook containing a handwritten draft of an essay entitled “Sambo Mistakes,” composed by Brown around 1847 for a New York abolitionist newspaper published by free blacks. Portrait of John Brown, photograph by unidentified photographer, circa 1856-1859, CSPH 580. Cased Photograph Collection, H. Furlong Baldwin Library, Maryland Historical Society. #MarylandHistory #JohnBrown #JohnBrownsRaid #HarpersFerry #WashingtonCountyMD