Adirondack Timbuctoo Opens During Peterboro Civil War Weekend The John Brown Lives traveling exhibit Dreaming of Timbuctoo opens Saturday June 10, the first day of the 25th Annual Peterboro Civil War Weekend. The exhibit explains Gerrit Smith’s 1846 gift of 40 acres of land to each of 3000 black men in order to assure voting rights, describes the persons who moved to the Lake Placid area to work their land, and describes the ongoing archeological work at the site of the 120,000 acres that came to be known as Timbuctoo. At 11:00 on Saturday, June 10 at the exhibit in The Barn of the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark, Norman K. Dann PhD will explain Smith’s “practical dreamer” philanthropy, how Timbuctoo introduced John Brown to Smith, and how that relationship led to an ignition of the Civil War. Dr. Dann is the researcher and author of several books on Peterboro, including a 21st C. biography of Gerrit Smith.