Chambersburg, Pennsylvania

==== Underground Railroad / John Brown ====

[[File:ChambersburgStatue.jpg|right|thumb|120px|Statue of a Union soldier on the main square.]]
By 1859, Chambersburg's active community of free and enslaved blacks and sympathetic whites had attracted a stop on the [[Underground Railroad]]. Several schools taught black children, although such activity was illegal in [[Virginia]] and other [[slave states]] further south. [[John Brown (abolitionist)|John Brown]] stayed in an upstairs room at Mary Ritner's boarding house between June and October, 1859 while preparing for his raid on [[Harpers Ferry]] (then in Virginia).<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.familytales.org/results.php?city=chambersburg| title=Collection of letters from Chambersburg, Familytales.org| access-date=2008-02-26| url-status=dead| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070607120405/http://www.familytales.org/results.php?city=chambersburg| archive-date=June 7, 2007| df=mdy-all}}</ref> Several of his fellow raiders stayed in the house as well, and four of them escaped capture and briefly visited the house after the raid. The house still stands at 225 East King Street.  While in Chambersburg, Brown posed as Dr. Isaac Smith, an iron mine developer, and bought, shipped, and stored weapons under the guise of mining equipment.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/underground/pa2.htm| title=John Brown House| publisher=nps.gov| access-date=2007-09-21| archive-date=April 6, 2007| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070406070408/http://www.cr.nps.gov/NR/travel/underground/pa2.htm| url-status=dead}}</ref>

Brown (using the name John Smith) and [[John Henry Kagi]] met with [[Frederick Douglass]] and [[Shields Green]] at an abandoned quarry outside of town to discuss the raid on August 19.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www3.iath.virginia.edu/jbrown/fdlife.html|title = Excerpt from The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass pp. 350–354|publisher=Reprint New York: Pathway Press|  year =1941 |  access-date = 2007-09-21 }}</ref>  According to Douglass's account, Brown described the planned raid in detail and Douglass advised him against it. Douglass also provided $10 from a supporter, and had helped Green – a future raider – locate Brown.