Physical location: 163 E 2000 Road, Wellsville, Kansas
Mailing address:
Black Jack Battlefield Trust, Inc. Box 44
Baldwin City, KS 66006-0044
Around first light on June 2, 1856, the abolitionist John Brown led a Free State militia in an attack on the camp of a southern militia led by Henry Clay Pate that was encamped along the Santa Fe Trail in Douglas County, Kansas Territory. After an intens
e three-hour battle, Brown took Pate prisoner, thus ending what many historians agree to be the first battle in what was to become the American Civil War. Local historian Karl Gridley has rightly observed that the Battle of Black Jack and the Raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859 are the bookends of John Brown’s war on slavery. The Black Jack Battlefield and Nature Park is owned and operated by the Black Jack Battlefield Trust, Inc, a non-profit 501(c)(3) membership organization. The Park, which also includes the historic Robert Hall Pearson House and farmstead, is open from dawn to dusk year-round for self guided tours of the battlefield and enjoyment of the nature trails and other amenities on the near 40-acre site. The Park is part of the Black Jack Battlefield National Historic Landmark. Camping, cookouts, campfires, fireworks or metal detecting not permitted without prior authorization in writing. Violators will be prosecuted.
