At the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers , near a spot in the water where Maryland , Virginia , and the easternmost bakshis of West Virginia converge , lie Harpers Ferry , a quaint , sometimes pastoral 19th - century town with a rich and dizzying history .
In the other 1800s , Harpers Ferry became a pioneer in the way goods were manufactured , beginning with munition . Just 70 air mile ( 112 kilometre ) or so northwestern ofWashington , D.C. , it bloomed into an American transportation hub , with railroads , bridge traverse the two rivers and boats express goods throughout the fresh country .
During the Civil War , it changed hands from Union to Confederate and back again at least eight times . thing puzzle so perplexing that the townspeople were called both Johnny ( when the Union army fill ) and Yankees ( when the Confederates were in bursting charge ) . A church in town flew a British flag , just to be dependable .
But it was in 1859 , a few years before the Civil War , with a bold and disastrous bid to launch a slave rebellion , that famed abolitionistJohn Browntruly put Harpers Ferry on the mathematical function .
" It ’s a very complicated place , and it ’s hard to say one story of Harpers Ferry , " saysPaul Shackel , an archaeologist and professor of anthropology at the University of Maryland . " There ’s a lot of unlike stories and a lot of dissimilar histories . "
The Start of Harpers Ferry
Harpers Ferry sit in a crack among usurious , jumpy ridges that rise into the trilled hills of the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains . The Potomac and Shenandoah rivers flow east toward the Chesapeake Bay , meet at an country of Ithiel Town known asthe Point .
In 1783 , Thomas Jefferson proclaimed the place " worth a ocean trip across the Atlantic . " He wrote about it in his , " note on the State of Virginia , " in 1785 . ( Harpers Ferry became part of West Virginia when it joined the Union in 1863.)An excerpt :
The townsfolk ’s mount was a natural for mercantilism and industry . George Washingtonpushed for Harpers Ferry as the spot of a new home armory , and one was erected in 1799 . By the outbreak of the Civil War , in 1861 , the U.S. Armory and Arsenal had churned outmore than 600,000 muskets , rifle and other weapons .
John H. Hall , a Maine gunmaker , organise preciseness machinery to counterfeit interchangeable piece that could be assembled by less - skilled workmen , rather than individual craftsmen make individual rifles . It increased production and quality and changed the face of American manufacture .
At that time , theChesapeake & Ohio Canal , theWinchester & Potomac Railroadand theBaltimore & Ohio Railroadalready had established the area as a exile fireball . In the 1850s , Harpers Ferry was a bustling post , with pig running through the street , hundreds of masses working in the armoury , and many more laboring in link mills along the rivers .
All that came to a halt , though , with the Civil War . Even before that , theabolitionistBrown made a move that hastened both the start of the war and the decline of Harpers Ferry .
The John Brown Raid
Today , at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park ( which covers parts of three states ) , you’re able to shoot the breeze the construction where the famed emancipationist submarine sandwich holed up — it ’s now calledJohn Brown ’s Fort — as his plans for sparking a striver rebellion go atrociously awry , almost from the first .
The long - planned raid Oct. 16 , 1859 dwell of Brown and fewer than two dozen men assume over the armoury . Two days later , the engine household into which he crawfish — his " fortress " — was circumvent by soldiers . Brown was catch and , about two week later , tried and discover guilty of treason . He was hang Dec. 2 . That morning , he wrote these words :
Brown ’s audacious plan of a slave rebellion attain fear into slaveholder in the south . And when he was hang , Northerners saw it as a tease vociferation to finally end thralldom .
Harpers Ferry find itself in the middle of everything once again .
The Town After John Brown
Once warfare erupted , Harpers Ferry grow out to be a decisive spot to occupy but a difficult one to defend , pose as it was under high ridge with few avenues for escape . " Whoever contain Harpers Ferry could control the railroad , which would supply the Army , " Shackel tell . " It was believe key , but the North and the South did not invest enough to hold it . So they were always blowing up the bridge and rebuilding the bridge . "
U.S. force abandon the town when the war begin , burning the arsenal on the way out . But the soldier did n’t do a very good job of it and the Confederates took over , run much of the ordnance - construct machinery deeper into the South .
" The guns that were produced in the Civil War [ for the South ] were from Harpers Ferry equipment and engineering and machinery , " Shackel says . " That was just a major blunder on the part of the Union . "
John Brown ’s Fort , used as a prison house and a powder home at various times during the warfare , became a touchstone for both sides ; Union soldiers often treating it with reverence , Confederates cursing it as they passed .
" It was one of the only building that was n’t demolish , " Shackel says . " U.S. scout group would queer the span into Harpers Ferry , and there would be a silence as they would adjoin by , or they would break out into song : ' John Brown ’s body lies a’mouldering in the tomb ' … "
The damage inflicted as troops came and go ( often burn down building in their wake ) finally hold its toll . From " The devising of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park : A Devil , Two Rivers , and a Dream , " co - authored by Shackel and Teresa S. Moyer :
Harpers Ferry Today
The C&O Canal proved to be an economic boon postwar , and the Ithiel Town soon coggle back to its infantry . It became a pilgrimage of sorts to those who reverence Brown and what he stand for , even as the townspeople ’s principal drawing card — Brown ’s Fort — was moved to Chicago ( for theWorld ’s Columbian exposition of 1893 ) , back to a farm near Harpers Ferry ( many southerly sympathizers did n’t want it in townspeople ) , to ablack college demonstrate in Harpers Ferryshortly after the Civil War , and at last , in 1968 ( years after the National Park Service buy it ) , to within 150 feet ( 45 meters ) of its original location , now part ofHarpers Ferry National Historical Park .
The mound and mountains around Harpers Ferry now are shop by tramp and trail lover . The amniotic fluid are used by kayakers and rafters and are upright for catch smallmouth bass . The town also mark off the approximate halfway point of the Georgia - to - MaineAppalachian Trailand the headquarters of theAppalachian Trail Conservancy .
Many of the nineteenth - century building in the lower town now have been restored . John ’s Brown Fort continues to be a place chat by those still dreaming of racial equality . And the townspeople , thanks largely to the efforts of those say the town ’s story at the national park , mostly have embraced their spot in the midriff of American history .
HowStuffWorks make a small affiliate commission when you buy through links on our website .
