(upbeat music) - [Narrator 1] In the heart of the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York in a remote and dense forest lies a buried secret that archeologist Dr. Hadley Kruczek-Aaron, Dr. KA for short, has been trying to dig up.

- The forest is coming in and encroaching upon this clearing.

- [Narrator 1] Somewhere here are the remains of a black settlement established as a bold social reform experiment that grew out of one man's act of generosity.

Called Timbuctoo by some, the settlement brought together a diverse group willing to make extraordinary sacrifices for the causes of land and liberty.

It led one man to the brink of insanity, sent another to the gallows and helped hurdle the nation toward a catastrophic civil war.

Shrouded by time, buried by dirt, this little known settlement connects to prominent people and pivotal moments in our nation's history.

With a team of research assistants and students, Dr. KA is on a mission to find it.

- Well, since 2009, I've been working on what I've been calling the Timbuctoo Archeology Project, which is an archeological research project relating to documenting a settlement of African American farmers in the Adirondack Mountains.

These farmers came to the Adirondacks in the mid 19th century under a grand land reform experiment, and I've been seeking to find one of those farms to better document life there.

So the Timbuctoo Archeology Project has probably been the hardest project I've ever worked on.

And so it really has been trying to find a needle in a haystack as it were.

I have been trying to figure out a way to develop more leads to get at those Timbuctoo settlers and to find them and to get more archival evidence.

And so that's in the works, that's in progress right now.

I decided that in the meantime that I would broaden my scope and look at the Timbuctoo experience, not only from the perspective of the African-American farmers, but also those who supported it.

And so I'm bringing 12 students and two teaching assistants and myself to lead an excavation in North Elba.

Today we're gonna do some shovel test that we may rotate some folks in.

All right, let's roll on out.

- [Narrator 1] Dr. KA and the team load up for their month long search to find long buried clues in North Elba.

But the Timbuctoo story begins about 100 miles to the Southwest in more than 200 years earlier.

- [Narrator 2] In the spring of 1818, Hamilton College nestled in the rolling hills of Central New York prepared to graduate its newest class and among those students was a young and ambitious Gerrit Smith.

- As a student, Gerrit Smith was probably characteristic of most young students that you might recognize in college today.

He got himself in trouble, he was not a religious person at the time.

He did some gambling, some drinking, but did his work too.

He was a studious person and he did well in college and enjoyed it.

- [Narrator 2] He was newly engaged, the valedictorian of his class and he dreamed of becoming an attorney.

For Gerrit Smith, the future sparkled with promise then came tragedy.

- The day after he graduated from college in late August of 1818, and came home here to Peterboro, his mother died.

It was unexpected, a shock to the family.

Gerrit loved her very much and had a close relationship with her, wrote many letters to her while he was in college, as opposed to almost nothing to his father.

Gerrit's relationship with his father, Peter was not good.

He didn't like his father.

He saw his father as an avaricious, selfish, self-centered person who was interested in hoarding wealth.

- [Narrator 2] That wealth had come from a vast real estate empire that Peter Smith had built by hand.

As a young man, Peter Smith was practically penniless, but he was willing to take risks.

He ventured into fur trading with the Oneida Indians, whose language he could speak.

And he partnered with another equally poor, but ambitious young man looking for success, John Jacob Astor.

Together, Astor and Smith built an immense fortune before eventually going their separate ways.

Astor would become the first multi-millionaire in the United States.

Peter Smith's land empire in Upstate and Central New York totaled well over half a million acres and it made the Smith family one of the largest landholders in the state.

Though devastated by the loss of his mother and estranged from his father, Gerrit Smith found joy just five months after graduation when he exchanged vows with his college sweetheart, Wealtha.

As a happily married man, he moved out of his father's mansion, determined to make his own way in the world.

His newly wed bliss was short lived.

Just seven months after their wedding, Gerrit Smith's wife suddenly died.

- It was a devastating blow to Gerrit.

He went into deep depression and didn't do much because he felt so depressed that he couldn't deal with regular life.

- [Narrator 2] While grappling with the deaths of his mother and his new wife, Gerrit Smith was hit with yet another heavy burden.

This one dealt by his father.

Peter Smith distressed by the death of his own wife and tired of his business interest was overtaken by a fiery religious revivalism engulfing the region.

- The second great awakening spirit of religious revival interest that swept through Central New York in the 1820s and early 1830s led by really vibrant preachers and set the place on fire as it was, became called the burned over district, because there were so many of these revivals that swept through here.

- The idea that Americans increasingly had a personal relationship with Jesus and with God and believed that they knew God's will.

And that was hugely empowering for anti-slavery people and activists to believe that God was on their side.

- [Narrator 2] It also inspired the rich and powerful like Peter Smith who no longer saw salvation through their success.

- He was depressed, burned out on the issues of land sales and business and Peterboro and wanted to leave.

- [Narrator 2] Despite their stormy past, he turned to his son, Gerrit and entrusted him with his life's work and the family's wealth.

- He didn't want to do it, he wanted to go elsewhere.

He ended up spending his life in this little office, working that land business because it was an obligation to his family.

- [Narrator] For Gerrit, there was no way out.

He moved back to the family home in Peterboro, the town established by and named after his father.

When Gerrit Smith remarried a few years later, it was his second wife Anne who pushed him to embrace religion and with it social reform.

- He was a very secular young man.

She was highly religious and wanted him to come with her to church.

He joined the church and at that time he was 29 years old.

- The idea of social reform in the 19th century began with the self, began with individual.

And it was believed that you first purge yourself of sin, you first control sins yourself and then you can seek to remove sin from society or you can reform society.

- [Narrator 2] Through this transformation, Smith found his eyes open to the power of purpose.

- This movement comes and envelopes him and just absorbs his interest, his resources for the rest of his life.

- As Gerrit Smith sat in his father's land office, now his office, he took stock of his life and the world around him compelled by his newfound calling and a genuine desire to affect change, he sought ways to distribute his wealth for the greatest good.

- Gerrit Smith's perspective on his wealth was one that strange to many people because he didn't want it.

He would say, I need the money to do what I want to do, but I don't want the money.

He perceived the money as a gift, a divine gift that he could use to help other people who were in some way oppressed.

- [Narrator 2] Because of this, his money and power attracted men and women who would soon become towering figures in American history.

Among them an escape slave turned legendary underground railroad conductor who rescued men, women, and children from the iron grip of slavery, Harriet Tubman.

An inspiring orator who shook the nation's soul with words that boomed like thunder and thoughts that cracked like lighting through America's dark conscience, Frederick Douglass, and a struggling sheep farmer who saw himself as an instrument of God and who was willing to sacrifice anything to destroy slavery.

His name, John Brown.

By the age of 12, young John Brown took on cattle drives more than 100 miles from home, often alone.

On one trip, Brown is said to have witnessed a slave boy about his same age savagely beaten with a shovel by his white master.

The horror of that brutal attack was forever etched in his mind and a seed of hatred against slavery was firmly planted in his heart.

By 1830, a growing unrest around slavery and racial injustice smoldered across the country.

It exploded on August 21st, 1831 when a Virginia slave named Nat Turner led a bloody rebellion that resulted in the killing of more than 50 white victims.

Turner was captured and hanged, but his act sparked fear and fury in the south.

Slave holders doubled down to defend their livelihood and tighten their grip on slavery.

Strife between the north and the south grew as the country marched towards a violent reckoning on the issue of slavery.

The nation, however, faced a more immediate crisis one that pushed Gerrit Smith, John Brown and thousands worldwide to the brink of ruin.

From 1834 to 1836, it was a time of great economic growth in the United States.

The nation felt flush with wealth thanks to investments that flooded in from England.

That money also fueled wild land speculation.

- Underlying it all is the sense that you have to buy land because land is essential to get into the game, there's good money to be had.

And so it turns in essentially to a property speculation because people see that they can buy up land and sell it pretty quickly and some folks are saying, you know, it's impossible to lose money on land at this time.

It's an easy way to make a buck.

You buy the land and flip it to somebody and that's how you make your fortune.

It's a property bubble.

- [Narrator 2] Despite Gerrit Smith's efforts to get rid of his family's property, the value of his land holdings only increased during this time.

- Everybody's up to their eyeballs in debt.

And then suddenly people are beginning to realize that they've overextended themselves.

They can't repay their bills, they can't repay their loans and bankers begin to realize, oh, something's gone wrong and then eventually it just collapses.

- [Narrator] The effects of the Panic of 1837 were devastating.

Thousands were thrown into bankruptcy, unemployment, poverty, and despair.

- You've got small businessmen here realizing that basically their lives and their family's lives are ruined because there's no way to support their family.

- [Narrator 2] Practically overnight, Gerrit Smith's land holdings plummeted in value, and he was forced to take drastic action.

- And he moved his family one and a quarter mile south into a house he owned there and left the mansion vacant while he was trying to sell it.

He fired his clerks and because he couldn't afford to pay them.

And the people who then worked in this office doing the clerk work were his wife and daughter.

- [Narrator 2] Added to his financial trouble, Smith's father, Peter died earlier in the year.

Smith was crushed under a mountain of debt, more than $600,000 equivalent to nearly 16 million today.

In desperation, he turned to one of the few people who could help him, his father's old business partner, John Jacob Astor.

- Astor agreed to loan him the money.

He loaned him $200,000 at 7% interest.

- [Narrator 2] John Brown had no safety net, no family friends to rescue him.

He was pushed to the brink of personal ruin and he would spend the rest of his life digging out of debt.

The year of 1837 with all of its hard truths and social turmoil served to further motivate both Smith and Brown.

- In the wake of the panic of 1837, Brown was already a staunch abolitionist, stood up at the back of his church in Hudson, Ohio, and to the congregation there consecrated his life to ending slavery, and he's gonna help purge the nation and the world from the scourge of slavery and racism.

- [Narrator 2] For Gerrit Smith, the economic panic served as a catalyst for him to pursue radical social change.

- He realized that he could no longer rely on his, the material conditions of his world and he vowed that if he come out of his debt, that he would give most of his money away.

- He decided to become involved in a big land giveaway.

Now, the reason for that, you have to go to the New York State Constitutional Convention in 1846.

- [Narrator 2] At that convention, New York State upheld a property requirement for voting that explicitly discriminated against black males.

- If you were a black male, you needed $250 worth of property in order to vote.

- And no one else was penalized with this particular requirement when they went to the polls except black New Yorkers, black New York men.

- That stinks, that smells of state supported racism.

- [Narrator 2] Disgusted by the state's discrimination, Gerrit Smith undertook a bold plan.

- Gerrit said, well, if that's the way the state's gonna be, we will give black males enough land to be worth $250 so they can vote.

- [Narrator 2] Smith decided to give away more than 100,000 acres of his own land to thousands of black males.

He wanted to empower them with the vote and level a blow against injustice.

- It's voting rights, political rights, it's economics and it's justice and it's benevolence, it's the whole ball of wax.

It's brilliant gift.

- [Narrator] Newspapers carried the electrifying news, but to help the black community, Gerrit Smith had to first reach them.

For that, he enlisted the help of New York's prominent black leaders.

Dr. James McCune Smith of New York City, the first African American to earn a medical degree, the Reverend Jermain Loguen of Syracuse, who would later be hailed as the underground railroad king, Charles B. Ray owner and editor of the black newspaper, the Colored American and the Reverend Henry Highland Garnet the fiery leader of Liberty Street Presbyterian Church in Troy, New York.

These men, along with others, chosen to act as land agents fanned out across the state to spread the news and enlist an army of grantees.

- In just a year's time, they distributed thousands of deeds and with another year they got 'em all passed out.

- [Narrator 2] Even Frederick Douglas, who moved from Massachusetts to New York to start his own newspaper benefited from Smith's generosity.

- He's not an official agent.

He gets a land deed from Smith as a gift, as a present, when he moves to New York State.

Douglas is very touched, becomes a defender and promoter of the giveaway in his new newspaper, which is really important for the giveaway.

He publishes reports about it, he writes beautiful pros about it, and he beckons the grantees to move there, to become settlers as soon as they can.

- [Narrator 1] Advantage should be at once taken of this generous and magnificent donation on the part of Gerrit Smith to colored residents in the State of New York.

The sharp ax of the staple arm pioneer should at once be lifted over the soil of Franklin and Essex counties and the noise of falling trees proclaimed the glorious dawn of civilization throughout their borders.

Come brethren.

Let it not be said that a people who under the lash could level the forest of Virginia, Maryland, and the whole Southern states that their oppressors might reap the reward, lack the energy and manly ambition to clear lands for themselves.

Frederick Douglas.

- [Narrator 2] Ledgers carried by Smith's land agents show that thousands of black new Yorkers from Albany to Astoria, from Rochester to Detroit etched their names into the books.

Detailed in the ledgers were not only the names of the grantees, but also the individual lots to be deeded in the counties where they were located.

The grantees needed only to meet Smith's requirements, that they be residents of the State of New York, that they not already own land and that they abstain from alcohol.

For those fortunate grantees who met Smith's requirements, new lives awaited in the heart of the Adirondacks.

Reverend Garnet of Troy saw in Smith's land grants the means to elevate his race.

- I think Garnet saw the Smith lands as a way where people would recognize this is your chance to define a distinct area that will be prosperous by the founding of black people.

He gives this speech and Troy on the eve before a group embarks out to the Smith lands, you know, and he says, go out and be devout.

Then he moves on to individual happiness and individual pursuit.

It's almost like a manifest destiny kind of connection.

And then he moves into putting those two things together with education.

And then the last thing he says is make sure you're voting.

And it's important because then you are a demonstration of the rising elevation, the improvement that so many people in society at the time particularly white people did not think was possible for African Americans.

- Henry Highland Garnet up in Troy.

His people go in greater number than other agents to the Adirondack.

He gets more people to move than any other agents.

You'll see more people coming out of Troy in Albany than who came from New York City.

- [Narrator 2] Among the black Trojans who answered Garnet's call was a 30 year old Shoemaker named James Henderson.

He, his wife, five young children and elderly mother are among the first to settle on a lot in the town of North Elba nestled between the breathtaking peaks of Essex County.

- He's one of the three families who settle at Timbuctoo.

- One of the settlements that developed outta Gerrit Smith land benevolence was called Timbuctoo.

- Named after the fabled West African city, which was a site of great culture and especially agricultural experimentation.

- And he's the black settler who uses the name Timbuctoo in a letterhead to refer to the specific place.

So it's thanks to him more than anyone.

We know that Timbuctoo was an actual spot on the map.

- [Narrator 2] Timbuctoo was not the only spot on a map to come out of Gerrit Smith's land grants, other black settlements like Freeman's home and Blackville were also established throughout the remote and rugged landscape of Upstate New York Sculpted by ice age glaciers, the Adirondack Mountains are rugged collection of 46 craggy peaks, many rising to more than 4,000 feet.

Its curved valleys have thousands of sparkling lakes.

The rivers and creeks run clear and clean.

The forest stretches in every direction.

This forever wild place was a perfect fit for John Brown's secret plan to invade the south and liberate the slaves.

In 1847 at his home in Springfield, Massachusetts, Brown unfolded a map of the Allegheny Mountains, a 400 plus mile stretch of peaks and valleys reaching from Central Pennsylvania to Southwestern Virginia.

He shared his vision with his new friend, Frederick Douglas.

- These mountains are the basis of my plan.

God has given me the strength of the hills to freedom.

They were placed here for the emancipation of the Negro race.

I know these mountains well, and I could take a body of men into them and keep them there.

Despite all the efforts of Virginia to dislodge them.

- [Narrator 2] Through a string of fortified mountain stronghold between the Allegheny and the Adirondacks, Brown believed he could strike at the heart of slavery in the south and shuttle fugitive slaves northward to Canada.

It was a more militant version of the underground railroad that he dubbed the Subterranean Pass-Way.

Brown was so committed to his plan that it's believed he created a custom flag for his cause and commissioned fellow abolitionist and black photographer, Augustus Washington, to capture his image while holding it.

When John Brown heard news of Gerrit Smith's extraordinary land grants to blacks in the mountains of New York, he saw an incredible opportunity.

- So John Brown ends up in Peterboro and volunteers himself to be a mentor for the young black families that are moving into the new Timbuctoo community, teaching them how to farm and make it profitable.

- [Narrator 2] Moved by the force of Brown's passion and compassion, Smith sold him a plot of land near the pioneering black settlers.

What Gerrit Smith may not have known was that John Brown may have also seen in Timbuctoo, the chance to finally enact his dangerous plan.

In the summer of 1849, John Brown and his large family moved to North Elba.

- The Brown family, they are also a part of this Timbuctoo experience as partners, as supporters.

And I thought, why don't I explore this chapter in Adirondack history through their site to see if I could find them and to tell their Timbuctoo story.

So we are in North Elba New York in the middle of the high peaks of the Adirondack and we're at John Brown Farm State Historic Site.

We're on the hunt for any deposits associated with the Brown family.

We do shovel test fits, which are small round holes that give us a sense of where activity areas might be, concentrations of artifacts.

And if we see those concentrations, those might be areas that we want to open up larger excavation units.

The house that you see behind me is the John Brown farmhouse.

It really is an honor and a privilege to be a part of helping to document this history.

So it wasn't something that I ever thought I'd be allowed to do is to be given permission to dig here and so it's wonderful to finally have this come to fruition.

- Gerrit Smith gave land to hundreds of people.

And if you look at the records, you just see name after name after name of people who were given deeds to land in North Elba.

So it was a few brave people who decided to come and see if they could make it work.

- [Narrator 2] By all accounts, the Hendersons made life at North Elba work.

Just eight months after their arrival in the Adirondack, James Henderson wrote to Reverend Garnet with an update on how they were doing.

- [Narrator 1] I like the land in the country well, there is not better land for grain.

I've seen Mr. John Brown of Springfield mass, and he says that he will move here in the spring and will give us a start if we will try and help ourselves.

I remain yours.

James H. Henderson.

- [Narrator 2] Joining James Henderson in North Elba was another black Trojan named Lyman Epps, who along with his pregnant wife and two children took up a plot of land, not far from John Brown and his family.

Like a field of Adirondack wildflowers, mutual respect and friendship blossomed between these African American pioneers and the Browns.

However, for John Brown, there was more on his mind than his newfound friends and beautiful fields of North Elba.

As a nation moved westward, the question of the expansion of slavery bitterly divided the country, a powder keg set to explode.

In the nation's capital, Senator Henry Clay introduced the Compromise of 1850, an attempt to maintain a delicate balance of power and peace in the country.

It also introduced the most controversial and divisive issue that faced the country, a new Fugitive Slave Act.

- It legalized the capture of runaway slaves anywhere in the country, especially in the north and it did so in a way it infuriated northerners, because it enabled federal marshals who were on the track of runaways to deputize anybody they came across in the north.

- [Narrator 2] Enraged abolitionist vowed to fight.

- Both Gerrit Smith and Frederick Douglas were instrumental in organizing the anti Fugitive Slave Law Convention that took place in Casnovia in August 21, 22 of 1850.

- [Narrator 2] Under the hot August sun in a scenic apple orchard, thousands of abolitionists gathered among them, perhaps the most famous abolitionists in the world, Frederick Douglas himself, a fugitive slave.

Gerrit Smith stood center stage arms in motion as he stirred the crowd.

He rallied the impassioned abolitionist to stand up against the proposed Fugitive Slave Act.

- The significance of it is that it concentrated attention on an act, an act before Congress that these people thought was an abomination to humanity.

- [Narrator 2] One month later, Congress passed into law, the Compromise of 1850, including the Fugitive Slave Act.

For radical abolitionists everywhere, it was a sign.

The time for talk was passed, the time to escalate the fight for freedom had arrived.

For blacks everywhere, especially in isolated, rural areas, places like North Elba, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was a clear and present danger.

- [Narrator 1] Pop up thunderstorms, bring dangerous conditions for the team.

- Can you guys put the tent away, okay?

- [Narrator 1] The fast moving storm forces them to stop digging and to retreat to safety indoors, a perfect time for lunch and learning more about the place and people they're exploring.

- The only real interpretive content on Timbuctoo were a couple of small panels.

You could see where they were on the walls over there.

So it's a really nice corrective to have the exhibit and the barn space.

So it's an opportunity for us to better understand this chapter and not just Adirondack history, but the nation's history of an experiment of people who tried to change their lives, but also to change history.

(bell ringing) - [Narrator 2] Across the City of Syracuse, New York church bells exploded into frantic ring.

It was the prearranged signal to alert citizens that a black person had been seized by authorities.

It was the community's response to the Fugitive Slave Act and as fate would have it, Gerrit Smith was in town to meet with members of his Liberty party, including local black abolitionist leader, Jermain Loguen, himself a fugitive slave.

Upon hearing the alarm, they sprang into action.

By nightfall, a large and agitated crowd had assembled outside a building where a fugitive slave named Jerry sat in shackles, surrounded by federal agents and deputies.

The mob attacked the building, overpowered the agents and swept Jerry into a waiting buggy.

He disappeared into the inky black of a cold Syracuse night free once more.

For Gerrit Smith, the Jerry rescue, as it would be known defied the notorious fugitive slave law passed by Congress.

He called their act of resistance a majestic and mighty uprising.

Others called it treason.

It was a charge that Smith would soon face again.

In the dead of winner, the Adirondacks can be undeniably beautiful and often unbearably brutal.

The winterly landscape shows mercy to no one.

On a cold winter's night in 1852, James Henderson, the shoemaker from Troy was returning home in a snowstorm after visiting a friend.

The snow fell hard and quickly covered his tracks.

Disoriented, he lost his way.

As his breath rose into the frigid night, he wandered to the snowy landscape.

At some point, James Henderson sat down, leaned against the tree and froze to death.

- The loss of that man to the community is tragic.

And his family has to go back to New York City as a result of it and his widow is so destitute.

She has to install her kids in the colored orphans asylum, and a few of them die there.

It's very sad, but what interests me even more about his story is how it gets manipulated and distorted in Adirondack history.

So rather than being framed as yet another Adirondacker who fell victim to a rotten winter and a piece of bad luck, he's kind of pictured as a loser, as an inept inadequate feckless fellow who is out of his depth in the woods and sort of meets an untimely, but maybe deserved end because he did know how to manage the tough Adirondack winter that is truly the destiny and the land of white people.

So the story becomes kind of racialized.

- [Narrator 2] Henderson's death was a blow, not only to the other settlers, but also to John Brown as his eldest daughter, Ruth later recalled.

- Mr. Henderson was an intelligent and good man and was very industrious and father thought much of him.

- [Narrator 2] Despite the death of their fellow settler and the obstacles they face, Lyman Epps and his family intended to endure at Timbuctoo.

Just one year after the Jerry rescue and his open defiance of federal law, Gerrit Smith was elected to the same legislative body that passed it, the United States Congress.

- Gerrit Smith's orientation to politics was that he detested it, his word.

He didn't see himself as a statesman, so he didn't want anything to do with it.

He did not want to be nominated for office and he made that abundantly clear to his constituents.

He was nominated for president of the United States four times.

He was nominated for the governor of New York State three times and he was nominated for the us Congress once.

And what he said to the public at the time in open letters was please don't nominate me because I don't wanna be a politician.

I am purely unqualified to be a politician.

They elected him anyway.

- [Narrator 2] On December 13th, 1853, Gerrit Smith took his seat in the House of Representatives.

The next day, a senator introduced the controversial Kansas Nebraska Act.

The bill repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which prohibited the expansion of slavery north of Missouri Southern border.

It also advanced the concept of popular sovereignty, which allowed for the residents of new territories to determine whether their states would be free or slave.

- Everyone knows that after the Kansas, Nebraska, Kansas territory is gonna become a battleground.

- [Narrator] On May 30th, 1854, President Franklin Pierce signed the Kansas Nebraska Act into law.

The territory exploded into violence, earning it the nickname Bleeding Kansas.

Gerrit Smith went to Washington to help repeal the Fugitive Slave Act only to witness another attack on the anti-slavery cause.

- The Kansas Nebraska Act is passed in May of 1854 and Gerrit Smith quits, he quits his appointment.

- So after one year of participation in Congress, he resigned his seat and returned to Peterboro because as he put it, I can have a greater effect working for the abolition of slavery in Peterboro, through my business and my contacts there than I can have in Washington, DC.

- [Narrator 1] Back in his land office, Gerrit Smith explored other ways to fight for freedom.

For John Brown fighting is exactly what he plans to do.

- Everyone recognizes that Brown is going to Kansas as a warrior to fight slavery in Kansas so that it can become a free state.

- [Narrator 2] He left behind his wife, Mary, his youngest children, and the black settlers of North Elba, like Lyman Epps who had become like family.

- We have some written records that speak to this relationship between the Epps' and the Browns.

Lyman seems to be active at the Brown farm.

Lyman is supposedly involved in the construction of the Brown farm.

And when you go to the Brown farms, you'll see Lyman's signature in the rafters of the farmhouse.

So clearly there was a relationship there and they offered support for each other.

And I can imagine that would've been even more necessary as John becomes more absent from the Adirondacks that Epps' and others in the community would've been needed to help support Mary and her family.

So, there was certainly a connection there.

- [Narrator 1] Finding Lyman Epps signature in the rafters is one thing, discovering where he lived is something entirely different.

While Dr. KA students use traditional tools to unearth artifacts at Brown's farm.

- I actually found sewing scissors.

- [Narrator 1] She and her research assistant Jared turned to high tech solutions in search of clues to the location of the Epps homestead.

- It would be off the road, not that far.

- [Narrator 1] Intrigued by what they see, they decide to take a drive.

Just over a mile as the crow flies from John Brown's farm, Dr. KA and her assistant navigator primitive row through the dense high peaks wilderness.

It's been years since they've been back to the original excavation site for Timbuctoo.

- This is where we're going here, park it right on the road.

That's a mosquito.

What I think about the Epps living out somewhere here, maybe not right here, but somewhere in this vicinity.

I think about what a major accomplishment it was that Lyman actually was able to grow some things out here, including corn and not many people in North Elba at the time were able to grow corn.

He was able to get something out of the land out here, which speaks to his efforts and his success that he did have.

- He's a young farmer with some competence and ability on the farm.

He's come from farm country himself so he knows something about what he's doing.

- [Narrator 2] With John Brown away from North Elba, the Epps family proved they could forge a life for themselves in the Adirondacks, just as Gerrit Smith had envisioned.

Like a wind whipped wildfire, violence raged on the planes of Kansas on May 21st, 1856, the anti-slavery town of Lawrence was ransacked by pro-slavery border ruffians intent on destroying the town.

As the violence convolts on the planes of Kansas, it simultaneously erupted in Congress.

The day after the attack on Lawrence, abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner from Massachusetts was beaten nearly to death on the Senate floor by South Carolina representative Preston Brooks.

Brooks arm with a thick wooden cane delivered savage blows to Sumner's head.

When the assault ended, Brooks walked away calmly while Charles Sumner near dead was carried from the Senate floor.

On May 24th, an apparent retaliation for the ransacking of Lawrence, five pro-slavery settlers in Pottawatomie Kansas were hacked to death with broad swords in the dead of night.

Implicated in the brutal murders are North Elba's, John Brown, his sons, and their band of free state soldiers.

- Gerrit Smith had been working for a couple of decades to try to end slavery, first through moral suasion then through politics.

And he become very frustrated.

And Brown comes up with this plan, which involves a use of violence to end slavery.

- But he realized by Kansas that this is gonna take too long, so he decided to plan this major strike.

And the federal arsenal Harper's Ferry is the largest arsenal for weapons in the country at the time.

Harriet Tubman and not only encouraged him said, you should raid the federal arsenal Harpers Ferry in July 4th, make it symbolic.

- Brown really refused to tell Gerrit about the details of his plan and Gerrit Smith wanted to see slavery die, but it never would've happened probably without somebody like Brown doing something.

And John Brown could not have done what he did when he did it without Gerrit Smith's money.

- [Narrator 2] Smith, along with five other men was part of a group known as the Secret Six.

It funded Brown's Kansas work.

- The euphemism Kansas work lasted beyond his work in Kansas and was used to cover some of his work that he was planning on taking place in Harper's Ferry area.

- [Narrator 2] On the night of October 16th, 1859, John Brown along with his small interracial band of freedom fighters, including three of his own sons invaded the town of Harpers Ferry, Virginia, By daybreak, Brown and his men were trapped in a fire depot building as gunfire from local militias rained down upon them.

Several of Browns men died in the gunfire or while trying to escape it.

By midnight, they were surrounded by a company of marines led by an up and coming colonel named Robert E. Lee, a distant relative of Anne Fitzhugh Smith, Gerrit Smith's wife.

After the Marine stormed the depot, John Brown was severely wounded and captured along with his remaining men.

Tana Brown's other fighters, including two of his three sons who followed him to Harper's Ferry lied dead or dying, at least 16 souls perished in the raid.

Brown was tried, found guilty of treason and sentenced to die by hanging.

On his way to the gallows, Brown is said to have slipped a handwritten note to a guard that included in part an ominous prediction.

- I, John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.

I had as I now think vainly flattered myself, that without very much bloodshed, it might be done.

- John Brown was, I mean, in many ways, the 911 of the 19th century, that's the major catalyst to the civil war.

Most northerners saw John Brown as a hero, even if they disagreed with his violent means, they saw him as a hero.

And for white southerners, John Brown is the devil incarnate.

He's the only thing more horrifying than the specter of a slave rebellion for white southerners because of their racism is a slave rebellion that's led by white.

- [Narrator 2] White men like Brown, willing to die to destroy slavery was unimaginable in the minds of many white southerners.

- [Narrator 3] The Northern abolitionists know nothing in the world of the loyal and contended disposition of Southern slaves, the wrongs and oppressions, which these fanatics shriek over are purely imaginary.

The Southern slave is the happiest of human laborers.

The best treated, the best cared for, the least inclined to be rebellious and the least willing to exchange his comfortable condition as a servant with that of a desperate and starving so-called free man, which the abolitionist in their fanaticism and madness would confer upon him.

- [Narrator 2] The shock waves of the failed invasion swept across the nation, reaching all the way to North Elba and Peter Burrow.

Printed alongside Brown's name in the newspapers is Gerrit Smith.

He's accused of being knowingly complicit in the murder and mayhem that John Brown brought.

Once again, Gerrit Smith is accused of treason.

There were calls for Smith's extradition to face trial and possibly a death sentence in Virginia.

For Gerrit Smith, the invasion, the accusations, and more than a decade of personal ailments and professional pressures proved too much to bear.

- He went into a minor psychotic state during which he was having delusions persecution.

He couldn't sleep, he wouldn't eat.

He was having hallucinations, believing that people around him were out to get him including his family.

- [Narrator 2] On November 7th, 1859, Gerrit Smith's family committed him to the New York State Lunatic asylum at Utica.

- He had a clinical breakdown.

We would call it maybe a nervous breakdown because of the stress he was under.

There is some conjecture that Gerrit Smith's mental illness after the Harpers Ferry raid was feigned and he faked it in order to avoid prosecution.

That is not true, it was real.

He did actually lose contact with reality.

- [Narrator 2] In the asylum, Smith was under the personal care of Dr. John P. Gray, one of the nation's foremost experts on insanity.

Gray would later be called upon by President Abraham Lincoln to give his medical opinion in a well known case involving the assassination of a military officer.

Just two years after that, Dr. Gray would be needed to render his opinion in another high profile assassination case that of the president himself.

Smith underwent urgent medical attention and intense therapy.

The staunch temperance advocate was reportedly forced to consume alcohol and marijuana as treatment.

After some seven weeks, Smith was released and returned to his home in Peterboro.

Smith's recovery only fueled suspicion that he faked his illness.

The Chicago Tribune called him a chicken hearted person who agitates courageously doctrines by many deemed dangerous, and then withdraws to the insane asylum to avoid their dangers.

Smith sued for libel and after a lengthy legal battle emerged victorious when the newspaper published a retraction, Despite his vindication, Smith ignited controversy once more when after the civil war, he along with other wealthy individuals paid the bail bond for none other than the imprisoned Jefferson Davis, the former president of the confederacy.

On December 28th, 1874 Smith died while on a trip to New York City.

He was buried in his beloved Peterboro.

After his execution, John Brown was returned to his home in New York.

At his farm in North Elba, he was laid to rest Standing next to his widow, Mary and his surviving children was Lyman Epps and his family.

- [KA] And so he's forever kind of tied to John Brown from that moment at the funeral.

- And he always lives in the shadow of John Brown's glory and the independent life of Lyman Epps as a homesteader, as a community builder, as a very active pioneer in the Adirondacks gets kind of shuffled outta sight.

- I think it's often that we just think of John Brown, but I think Epps's participation over the years has been a way for us to be more inclusive in how we tell this story to make sure that the Timbuctoo settlers also are a big part of this story.

- [Narrator 2] After the Browns moved away, the Epps' became pillars of the wider community.

As a popular Adirondack guide, Lyman Epps was credited with being the first to cut a trail to Indian pass, further opening up the wild lands.

He became a popular music teacher and helped establish a Sunday school in the Lake Pleasant Library.

The family persevered in the area for nearly 100 years.

Many of them are buried in the family plot of the North Elba cemetery.

They were the last of the pioneering black settlers of Timbuctoo.

- [Narrator 1] It's been four weeks of backbreaking digging for Dr. KA and her team.

The time has come to fill in the holes and end this field season.

Their hard work has unearth the trove of artifacts buried deep in the Adirondack soil.

Despite the hall of historic items, Dr. Kruszek-Aaron knows the real goal of finding Timbuctoo remains unfulfilled.

- It's absolutely frustrating to not be able to find the story of Timbuctoo using archeology.

I've kept coming back because I feel that the story is that important.

And I know may help change perceptions about what the fight against slavery looked like in the mid 19th century, that the fight against slavery didn't just look like the underground railroad or Harper's Ferry, or it didn't just look like Bleeding Kansas.

It looked like everyday life.

That's an important thing to remember.

- The story of Timbuctoo reminds us of how racialized the American historical landscape is and how necessary it is to go back and revisit every story and see what got dropped, what got effaced, what got erased, what got scrubbed out of the mix.

- I think it's inconceivable to imagine John Brown's raid without Timbuctoo.

Without John Brown's raid, I don't think there would've been a civil war at least for the next 10 years or so, maybe 20 years, which is another 20 years of slavery, maybe longer.

- But the real lesson involved in it all was a noble example.

He did this, I think in part because he wanted to make an example of himself for the rest of the world to see that we ought to be concerned about the welfare of others who were discriminated against.

- What John Brown and Gerrit Smith and Frederick Douglas and James McCune Smith were fighting is the same thing we're fighting today.

In the sense the civil war is still going on.

The main question that we're fighting is, what's the status of blacks in American society.

Are they political and social equals?

Do they have the same rights under laws whites do?

That's a central question.