This broad flat valley of the Western Ausable, the stream winding through it in a deeply-cut gorge, and surrounded on the south and west by an amphitheatre of the highest Adirondack peaks, is the township of North Elba in Essex county; and the valley and its fertile borders are the "Plains of Abraham." It is a farming district, so well enclosed by the mountains that the soil is fairly tillable. These plains gradually slope northwestward to the banks of two of the most noted of the Adirondack waters, Lake Placid and the Mirror Lake, with old Whiteface Mountain for their guardian, "heaving high his forehead bare." Here are the scattered buildings of the village of North Elba on the plains, and the more modern and fashionable settlement beyond at the lakes. To the southward is the great rounded top of Tahawus, the highest Adirondack peak, displayed through an opening vista, and at the northern border grandly stands Whiteface, the black sides abruptly changing to white, where an avalanche years ago denuded the granite cliffs near the top and swept down all the trees. Here at North Elba was the home and farm of "Old John Brown of Osawatomie." He had been given this homestead by Gerrit Smith, the great New York Abolitionist, in 1849, and there had also been founded here a colony of refuge for the negro slaves. It was then a remote and almost unknown place in the wilderness. Brown settled in the colony and built his little log house and barn near a huge boulder which stood a short distance from the front door. Here he formed his plan for liberating the slaves, and from here went to engage in the Kansas border wars of 1856. Returning, for three years he brooded on plans to liberate the negroes, and after further conflicts in Kansas projected the expedition into Virginia for the capture of Harper's Ferry in October, 1859. He declared his object to be to free all the slaves, and that he acted "by the authority of God Almighty." After his capture and conviction he discouraged efforts at liberation, saying, "I am of more use to the cause dead than living." After his death his body was brought up here to his home in the wilderness, for he had said, "When I die, bury me by the big rock, where I love to sit and read the word of God." Here he was buried on a bitterly cold day in December, 1859, a few sorrowing friends conducting the services and covering up his body in the frozen ground.