Mel, thank you for the comprehensive history lesson. All I really knew of John Brown was that he had something to do with slavery and the words in the song “John Brown’s Body lies a moulding in his grave.” I don’t know what to label the man, but from what you write I would ay he certainly suffered a severe dose of prairie madness.
Funny coincidence, my maternal grandfather’s name was John Brown. If he had been my paternal grandparent I may have been named John Brown as well.