Little Round Top & The Brown Boys' Rancho

[Sean]

Paul, his dog Toby, Ricardo, and I visited the gravesite of Owen Brown on Little Round Top, which is Peak 1934 along the ridge between Millard and El Prieto canyons. This easy hike starts either from the top of El Prieto Road or Risinghill Road in The Meadows neighborhood of Altadena. From El Prieto Road, walk through a gate up the service road for a reservoir, then switchback leftward on the trail. Continue a short ways up the trail to a small saddle and turn right to go up to the peak and gravesite. From Risinghill Road, look for a trail on the left which goes up behind the houses to the reservoir. Then turn right onto the ascending path to the saddle and summit.

At the summit of Little Round Top a tree provides some shade, and a memorial sign rests under the tree.

Paul, who is a lawyer, was instrumental in regaining public access to this historic site after the water company put up a gate to keep people off the service road. He also built a trail up to the summit and helped rescue the original grave marker after it went missing several years ago. He told us that the hill once deteriorated into a popular motorcycle jump, and people would trash the summit and knock over the gravestone. Even though the marker still awaits its reunion with the gravesite, Paul showed us exactly where Owen Brown is buried.

Owen Brown was, of course, the famous son of the famous abolitionist John Brown. Owen and his father fought against slaveowners in Kansas until the disastrous raid at Harpers Ferry, after which he fled the state and continued west to California.

Owen and his brother Jason built a ranch on the mesa across from Little Round Top. Paul and Toby guided us to the location of the Brown Boys' Ranch house.

This is how the ranch looked back in the late 1880s.

And this is how it looks today.

Paul hopes to organize an archaeological dig at this site and turn up Owen and Jason's old trail tools. He's always looking for second-hand mattocks.

(Paul and Toby with Little Round Top in back.)