Returning, he accepted from Gerrit Smith a tract of mountain land in the Adirondacks, where he proposed to found and foster colonies of free negroes.

This undertaking proved abortive, like all his others, and he once more went back to the wool business in Ohio.
Twice married, nineteen children had been born to him, of whom eleven were living when, in 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska bill plunged the country into the heat of political strife.

Four of his sons moved away to the new Territory in the first rush of emigrants; several others went later.

When the Border-Ruffian hostilities broke out, John Brown followed, with money and arms contributed in the North.

With his sons as a nucleus, he gathered a little band of fifteen to twenty adventurers, and soon made his name a terror in the lawless guerrilla warfare of the day.