Altadena Marks July Fourth With Tribute at Owen Brown’s Gravesite

Altadena Heritage will mark the Fourth of July with a morning ceremony at the hilltop gravesite of abolitionist Owen Brown, giving residents the choice of joining a livestream or hiking to the site where Brown has been buried since 1889, according to the organization.

The event, called the “Morning Celebration at Owen Brown’s Gravesite,” is presented by the Owen Brown Gravesite Committee to mark the nation’s 250th birthday this Fourth of July, according to Altadena Heritage, which is taking part as one of several community partners.

The program is built around the “Declaration of Liberty,” written by John and Owen Brown for July 4, 1859, which called for ending slavery and — unusually for its time—for universal rights including for women.

Owen Brown was the son of abolitionist John Brown and the last survivor of his father’s 1859 raid on the U.S. Armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. He moved in the early 1880’s to Pasadena — then a community primarily populated by Union supporters — with his brother Jason, and the two homesteaded land near what is now Altadena. When he died of pneumonia in January 1889, 2,000 people attended his funeral, many marching from downtown Pasadena up into the foothills to witness the burial, according to Altadena Heritage.

Brown is buried on the hilltop known as Little Round Top, named for the Union stand at Gettysburg. The site is reached by a roughly fifteen-minute hike from a public dedication point at the north end of El Prieto Road in the Altadena Meadows neighborhood, Altadena Heritage says.

Two ways to participate are listed on Altadena Heritage’s event page: a livestream from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m., with registration available online, or an in-person gathering at 9 a.m. at the top of El Prieto Road for a short hike to the gravesite. Space for the hike is limited, and registration is required.

Brown family descendants are expected to attend, along with representatives from Altadena Heritage, the Chamber of Commerce, the Pasadena Unified School District and the Pasadena Civil War Roundtable, who will read excerpts from the “Declaration of Liberty,” Altadena Heritage says. Live music and light refreshments are planned at the gravesite.

The site has drawn expanding recognition in recent years. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously in December 2024 to designate it a county historical landmark, following a motion Supervisor Kathryn Barger introduced in February 2024 that credited the nomination to grassroots efforts by local organizations including Altadena Heritage and the Altadena Town Council, according to a statement from Barger’s office. 

The gravesite was also recently added to the National Park Service’s Network to Freedom list.

The site, once at the center of a decades-long dispute over public access, has had that access affirmed twice by courts, most recently in 2006, according to LAist.