Monday, April 17, 2017

Writer-Artist Presents Program on American Abolitionists for Altadena Historical Society

Abolitionist-insurrectionist John Brown, whose sons Jason and Owen came to live in the hills of Altadena after their father‘s raid on Harper’s Ferry, will be the topic of writer-artist Hope Demetriades in a program sponsored by the Altadena Historical Society.

The program will be at 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 24, at the Altadena Community Center, 730 E. Altadena Drive, 91001. The program is free and open to the public. The Community Center is immediately west of the Sheriff’s Station and across Altadena Drive from Rite-Aid.

“Brown’s passionate devotion not only to ending slavery, but to bringing about total equality among African-Americans and Caucasians inspired deep resentment in the mostly pro-slavery South, but profound gratitude and respect among slaves, free African-Americans and abolitionists,” Demetriades said.

She will discuss events in Brown’s life that led up to his raid on the Harper’s Ferry, Va., armory in 1859–hoping to begin a revolution that would end slavery–and other abolitionists including Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglas and Elijah Lovejoy.

Two of Brown’s sons were killed in the Harper’s Ferry attack (Brown was captured, tried and hung). His surviving sons, Owen and Jason, along with other family members, moved to California, where they built a cabin in the Altadena foothills.

Jason worked on the Mount Lowe Railway before returning home to Ohio, where he died in 1884. When Owen died in 1889, he was buried on a foothill above the Las Casitas tract in Altadena.

Demetriades also will display some of her artistic assemblages that memorialize and canonize the abolitionists. A showing of her work was recently displayed in the Boswell Gallery at Polytechnic School in Pasadena.

The Historical Society’s office, archives and museum are in the Community Center, and are open at no charge from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays, and by appointment at (626) 797-8016 and altadenahistorical.society@yahoo.com.