“There will be music,” said Donna Coburn. “And anybody who wants to play music, who wants to bring their guitars or mandolins is welcome. People will just set up under the trees and play.”

This year’s celebration commemorates the 150th year of Brown’s death. He was hanged on Dec. 2, 1859, for leading a raid on an armory in Harper’s Ferry, Va., in hopes of instigating a slave revolt in the state.

About a year after the raid, which was unsuccessful, the country plunged into the Civil War and Brown was hailed as a hero by the Union.

Yet, well before Brown’s name entered into legend he spent nearly a decade in Crawford County, establishing a farm and a tannery on the New Richmond property.

The stone walls of the tannery still stand today and will act as an architectural centerpiece for this weekend’s festivities.

“There’s also a small museum there that you can walk through,” said Ed Edinger, secretary and treasurer for the John Brown Heritage Association.

“That’s all on the John Brown farm. It’s a couple hundred acres, an old site where John Brown’s home was. ... We have two very large interpretive markers that talk about the things he did in Crawford County and the activities of the rest of his life. There’s a small graveyard on the farm that can be visited. It has the graves of his first wife and two of his children.”

The John Brown festival used to be held in the first week of May, to coincide with his May 9 birthday.

“Normally, yes,” said Mike Dallas, captain of the 150th Bucktails. “But the last few years we did it, it was cold, miserable and wet. So we decided to move it to the first week in June.

“Hopefully we’ll get some people out there, which would be nice for the sake of the tannery and the museum and everything.”

Pete Chiodo can be reached at 724-6370 ext. 275 or by e-mail at pchiodo@meadvilletribune.com.