House Built With Dimes

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In 1864, near the end of the Civil War, Mary and her grown children left Iowa for California. They followed the Mormon Trail to Fort Kearny, Nebraska. After hearing stories of Indian trouble, Mary and her family joined a larger wagon train for protection. At one point, a band of 250 Sioux warriors approached and rode in among the wagons. When members of the wagon train pointed guns at them, the warriors departed.

After reaching the Union post at Soda Springs, Idaho, the wagon train was accompanied for the next 200 miles to Nevada. From there, the family followed the California Trail, crossing the High Sierras, and eventually ending up in Red Bluff, CA.

The 2,000 residents of Red Bluff welcomed Mary and her family with open arms. The family did not have much money, so the town took up a collection to help Mary build a house. The news spread throughout California, and governor Frederick Low even took up the cause. He asked all Californians to donate a dime so that Mary could build herself and her family a home. 

Today, a business occupies the home and cares for it. Few people who drive or walk by the house know anything of its history. I drove to Red Bluff early this morning to photograph the historic house built with dime donations.

Mary Brown fell in love with California, and she lived the rest of her life in the state. Several years after her Red Bluff home was completed however, she moved to Eureka, CA. Some trouble began when several residents became aware of the fact that Mary Brown's husband was John Brown.

In 1837, after the murder in Illinois of an anti slavery newspaper man name Elijah P. Lovejoy, John Brown proclaimed, “Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery!”

John Brown was true to his word, and over the next two decades he worked tirelessly to end slavery. Eventually, he came to the conclusion that it was impossible to end slavery peacefully. In 1859 John Brown led a daring raid against the Federal armory at Harper’s Ferry, VA, hopeing to start a slave insurrection, and then arming them with the weapons taken from the armory.  Brown  lost two of his sons during that raid, but he succeeded in electrifying the North while terrifying the South. John Brown was captured by Colonel Robert E. Lee, tried in Richmond, VA, and hung.

Mary Brown's husband, John Brown, was one of the most well known figures leading up to the American Civil War. 

This photograph is the Mary Brown house built by the residents of Red Bluff, and the citizens of California. It could be called the House Built With Dimes. And it's hiding in plain sight at 135 Main St., Red Bluff, CA.