Brown had for years been formulating a plan that he was convinced would end slavery forever – a raid on the arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia.

At the behest of a slave named Jim Daniels, on December 20, 1858, Brown and a group of his men, including Kagi, rode into Vernon County, Missouri from Kansas with the intention of taking Daniels and other slaves from their masters and taking them all the way to Canada to freedom.

For weeks, the escaping slaves were hidden, receiving aid at various locations in northeast Kansas.

Despite a posse attempting to take John Kagi at his sister's cabin, they made it safely across the river into Iowa and then eventually reached freedom in Windsor, Ontario, Canada on March 12, 1859.

The property continued to change hands through the end of the 19th century until 1937, when owner Edward Bartling had the cabin moved to prevent its destruction by a highway project.

The authentic "old fashioned" look facilitated Bartling’s desire to open the cabin to the public and develop his property as a tourist park.

The cabin remained open to the public from 1938 to 2002 as the John Brown’s Cave tourist attraction.

Zion AME Church, one of the first black congregations established west of the Missouri River.