A locality of extreme northeast West Virginia. It was the scene of John Brown's rebellion (1859), in which he briefly seized the U.S. arsenal here. The town changed hands a number of times during the Civil War.
Harpers Ferry
Dictionary:
Har·pers Ferry (här'pərz)  |
A locality of extreme northeast West Virginia. It was the scene of John Brown's rebellion (1859), in which he briefly seized the U.S. arsenal here. The town changed hands a number of times during the Civil War.
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| Columbia Encyclopedia: Harpers Ferry |
Harpers Ferry, town (1990 pop. 308), Jefferson co., easternmost W Va., at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers; inc. 1763. The town is a tourist attraction, known for its history and its scenic beauty. John Brown's seizure of the U.S. arsenal there on Oct. 16, 1859, and the town's subsequent strategic importance during the Civil War, when it was considered the key to the Shenandoah valley, brought it into national prominence. In 1747, Robert Harper, a millwright, established a ferry at the junction of the two rivers-hence the town's name. The U.S. arsenal was located there in 1796, and by the mid-19th cent., Harpers Ferry was an important arms-producing center, with mills, numerous gun factories, and huge stores of weapons and ammunition. The development of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and of the Baltimore & Ohio RR increased its importance, making it a transportation link between the Ohio valley and the East. During the Civil War it was primarily held by Union soldiers but changed hands a number of times. Its industrial plant was repeatedly destroyed by troops of both sides. Harpers Ferry never recovered economically, and a series of devastating floods in the late 19th cent. ended all hopes for revival. Despite continued flooding during the 20th cent., many old buildings remain. Of interest are the fire engine house in which John Brown was captured; the John Brown Museum; and the old steps, hand-carved (early 1800s) into the natural stone, which lead to Robert Harper's house (1775-82) and to Jefferson Rock. The Harpers Ferry National Historical Park (est. 1963; 2,343 acres/949 hectares) attracts many visitors (see National Parks and Monuments, table).
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| History Dictionary: Harpers Ferry |
The place now in West Virginia where the militant abolitionist John Brown was captured in 1859, after he seized a federal arsenal there.
| Marine Corps Dictionary: Harper's Ferry |
The location of John Brown's ill fated uprising in 1859 and of his capture by U. S. Marines under the command of Army Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee. The Marines were led by Lt Israel Greene who later resigned his commission to join the Confederate States Marines. Marine Private Luke Quinn was killed when he breached a hole in the firehouse door and was shot by John Brown and can, arguably, be considered the first casualty of the Civil War.
| Wikipedia: Harpers Ferry, West Virginia |
"Harpers Ferry" redirects here. For other uses, see Harpers Ferry (disambiguation).
| Harpers Ferry, West Virginia | |
|---|---|
| — Town — | |
 |
|
| Coordinates: 39°19′31″N 77°44′37″W / 39.32528°N 77.74361°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | West Virginia |
| County | Jefferson |
| Government | |
| - Mayor | Jim Addy |
| Area | |
| - Total | 0.6 sq mi (1.6 km2) |
| - Land | 0.6 sq mi (1.4 km2) |
| - Water | 0.1 sq mi (0.2 km2) |
| Elevation | 489 ft (149 m) |
| Population (2000) | |
| - Total | 307 |
| - Density | 552.2/sq mi (213.2/km2) |
| Time zone | Eastern (EST) (UTC-5) |
| - Summer (DST) | EDT (UTC-4) |
| ZIP code | 25425 |
| Area code(s) | 304 |
| FIPS code | 54-35284[1] |
| GNIS feature ID | 1560593[2] |
Harpers Ferry is a historic town in Jefferson County, West Virginia. In many books the town is called "Harper's Ferry" with an apostrophe.[3] It is situated at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers where the U.S. states of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia meet. The town is located on a low-lying flood plain created by the two rivers and surrounded by higher ground. Historically, Harpers Ferry is best known for John Brown's raid on the Armory in 1859 and its role in the American Civil War. As of the 2000 census, the town had a population of 307.[4]
The lower part of Harpers Ferry is located within Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. Most of the remainder, which includes the higher, more populated area, is included in the separate Harpers Ferry Historic District. Two other National Register of Historic Places properties adjoin the town: the B & O Railroad Potomac River Crossing and St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church.
The Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) headquarters is located in Harpers Ferry and the town is one of only a few that the Appalachian Trail passes directly through.
Contents |
History
Early years
In 1751, Robert Harper was given a patent on 125 acres (0.5 km²) at the present location of the town. In 1761, Harper established a ferry across the Potomac, making the town a starting point for settlers moving into the Shenandoah Valley and further west. In 1763, the Virginia General Assembly established the town of "Shenandoah Falls at Mr. Harper's Ferry."
On October 25, 1783, Thomas Jefferson visited Harpers Ferry. He viewed "the passage of the Potomac though the Blue Ridge" from a rock which is now named for him. Jefferson was actually on his way to Philadelphia and passed through Harpers Ferry with his daughter Patsy. Jefferson called the site "perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in nature.”
George Washington, as president of the Patowmack Company (which was formed to complete river improvements on the Potomac and its tributaries), traveled to Harpers Ferry during the summer of 1785 to determine the need for bypass canals. In 1794, Washington's familiarity with the area led him to propose the site for a new United States armory and arsenal. Some of Washington's family moved to the area; his great-great nephew, Colonel Lewis Washington, was held hostage during John Brown's raid in 1859.
In 1796, the federal government purchased a 125-acre (0.5 km2) parcel of land from the heirs of Robert Harper and, in 1799, construction began on the United States Armory and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry.[5] This was one of only two such facilities in the US, the other being Springfield, Massachusetts, and between them they produced most of the small arms for the US Army. The town was transformed into an industrial center: Between 1801 and its destruction in 1861 to prevent its capture during the Civil War, the Armory produced more than 600,000 muskets, rifles, and pistols. Inventor Captain John H. Hall pioneered the use of interchangeable parts in firearms manufactured at his Rifle Works at the armory between 1820 and 1840; his M1819 Hall rifle was the first breech loading weapon adopted by the US Army.
This industrialization continued in 1833 when the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal reached Harpers Ferry linking it with Washington, D.C. A year later, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad began train service through the town.
John Brown's raid
Main article: John Brown's Raid on Harper Ferry
On October 16, 1859, the radical abolitionist John Brown led a group of 21 men in a raid on the Arsenal. Five of the men were black: three free blacks, one a freed slave, and one a fugitive slave. During this time, assisting fugitive slaves was illegal under the Dred Scott decision. Brown attacked and captured several buildings; he hoped to use the captured weapons to initiate a slave uprising throughout the South. The first shot mortally wounded Hayward Shepherd.[6] Shepherd was a free black man who was a night baggage porter for the B&O Railroad that ran through Harpers Ferry near the armory. The noise from that shot roused Dr. John Starry from his sleep shortly after 1:00 a.m. He walked from his nearby home to investigate the shooting and was confronted by Brown's men. Starry stated that he was a doctor but could do nothing more for Shepherd, and Brown's men allowed him to leave. Instead of going home, Starry went to the livery and rode to neighboring towns and villages, alerting residents to the raid.
When he reached nearby Charles Town, they rang the church bells and aroused the citizens from their sleep. John Brown's men were quickly pinned down by local citizens and militia, and forced to take refuge in the engine house adjacent to the armory.
The Secretary of War asked for the assistance of the Navy Department for a unit of United States Marines, the nearest troops.[7] Lieutenant Israel Greene was ordered to take a force of 86 Marines to the town. In need of an officer to lead the expedition, U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee was found on leave nearby and was assigned as commander along with Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart as his aide de camp. The whole contingent arrived by train on October 18, and after negotiation failed, they stormed the fire house and captured most of the raiders, killing a few and suffering a single casualty themselves. Brown was tried for treason against the state of Virginia, convicted, and hanged in nearby Charles Town. Starry's testimony was integral to his conviction. Following the prosecution (by Andrew Hunter), "John Brown captured the attention of the nation like no other abolitionist or slave owner before or since." The Marines returned to their barracks and Colonel Lee returned to finish his leave. The raid was a catalyst for the Civil War.
Civil War
The Civil War was disastrous for Harpers Ferry, which changed hands eight times between 1861 and 1865.[8] When Virginia seceded in April 1861 the US garrison attempted to burn the arsenal and destroy the machinery. Locals saved the equipment, which was later transferred to a more secure location in Richmond. Arms production never returned to Harpers Ferry.
Because of the town's strategic location on the railroad and at the northern end of the Shenandoah Valley, both Union and Confederate troops moved through Harpers Ferry frequently. The town's garrison of 14,000 Federal troops played a key role in the Confederate invasion of Maryland in September 1862. General Robert E. Lee did not want to continue on to Pennsylvania without capturing the town, which was on his supply line and would control one of his possible routes of retreat if the invasion did not go well. Dividing his army of approximately 40,000 into four sections, he used the cover of the mountains and sent three columns under Stonewall Jackson to surround and capture the town.[9]
The Battle of Harpers Ferry started with light fighting September 13 to capture the Maryland Heights to the northeast while John Walker moved back over the Potomac to capture Loudoun Heights south of town. After an artillery bombardment on September 14 and 15, the Federal garrison surrendered. Lee, because of the delay in capturing Harpers Ferry, and the movement of Federal forces west, was forced to regroup at the town of Sharpsburg, leading two days later to the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest single day in American military history.
On the 4th of July 1864 General Franz Sigel, who was then in command here, withdrew his troops to Maryland Heights, and from there resisted Early's attempt to enter the town and to drive the Federal garrison from Maryland Heights.[10]
Shortly after the end of the Civil War, Harpers Ferry, along with all of both Berkeley and Jefferson Counties, was separated from Virginia and incorporated into West Virginia. The inhabitants of the counties as well as the Virginia legislature protested, but the federal government went ahead anyway, forming the West Virginia "panhandle" of today.
20th Century
On August 15, 1906, the Niagara Movement, led by author and scholar W. E. B. Du Bois, held its first meeting on American soil on the campus of Storer College, now part of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. The three-day gathering, which was held to secure civil rights for African Americans, was later described by DuBois as "one of the greatest meetings that American Negroes ever held." Attendees of the 1906 meeting walked from Storer College to the nearby farm of the Murphy family, then the site of the historic fort where John Brown's quest to free four million enslaved African Americans reached its bloody climax.
At the beginning of the twentieth century it was a fashionable resort for holidayers who came by train from Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. An elongated mass of land in the Potomac, known as Island Park, was a kind of Coney Island. Owned by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, on week ends and holidays as many as 28 excursion trains a day brought picnickers, bowling clubs, singing societies, and honeymooners up from the city. According to Mayor Gilbert Perry, (Mayor in 1957), recalling the period - "Society people came from the city for the whole summer, or for a week or two during the racing season over at Charles Town...At Hilltop House (hotel) guests included bank presidents, businessmen, and real high society. Woodrow Wilson stayed there..The hotel servants wore starched white jackets. And there was a croquet court, where a Gibson Girl might be seen playing against a gentleman with a wonderful mustache...It was quite the thing to elope by the old Chesapeake and Ohio canal boat, be married at the Ferry by the tolltaker, who was a retired parson, and honeymoon at Hilltop House." But its popularity faded. The Depression and devastating floods washed away the resort trade. Highway bridges, rebuilt a mile below town on the Potomac and a mile above on the Shenandoah, routed traffic around the town. Population declined.[11]
In 1944, most of the town became part of the National Park Service and it is now maintained as the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. The majority of the existing homes in Harpers Ferry (including Charmadoah) are very old, and some of these are registered in the National Register of Historic Places.
In 1950 Harpers Ferry had a population of 822.[12]
Rail transportation
See also: Harpers Ferry (Amtrak station)
_train.jpg)
Amtrak, the national passenger rail system, provides service to Harpers Ferry two times a day (once in each direction). It is also served by the MARC commuter rail service, on its Brunswick line. The city's passenger rail station is located at the West Virginia end of the historic railroad bridge across the Potomac River. In addition about forty or fifty CSX freight trains daily pass through Harpers Ferry and over the bridge spanning the Potomac River.
Geography
Harpers Ferry is located at 39°19′31″N 77°44′37″W / 39.32528°N 77.74361°W (39.325398, -77.743599)[13].
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 1.6 km² (0.6 mi²). 1.5 km² (0.6 mi²) of it is land and 0.2 km² (0.1 mi²) of it (9.68%) is water. Some properties are currently threatened by development.[14]
Thomas Jefferson wrote in Notes on the State of Virginia, published in 1785, that
"The passage of the Patowmac through the Blue Ridge is perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in Nature."[15]
From most of Harpers Ferry, a fading advertisement for tooth powder painted on the cliff face of Maryland Heights decades ago is visible.[16]
Demographics
As of the census[1] of 2000, there were 307 people, 153 households, and 89 families residing in the town. The population density was 211.7/km² (552.2/mi²). There were 189 housing units at an average density of 130.3/km² (339.9/mi²). The racial makeup of the town was 89.90% White, 9.12% African American, 0.33% Native American, and 0.65% from two or more races. 0.65% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.
There were 153 households out of which 17.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 45.1% were married couples living together, 11.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 41.8% were non-families. 36.6% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.01 and the average family size was 2.56.
In the town the population was 17.3% under the age of 18, 2.0% from 18 to 24, 28.0% from 25 to 44, 30.9% from 45 to 64, and 21.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 47 years. For every 100 females there were 90.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 92.4 males.
The median income for a household in the town was $52,344, and the median income for a family was $70,313. Males had a median income of $45,417 versus $22,708 for females. The per capita income for the town was $29,638. About 3.2% of families and 2.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 2.8% of those under the age of eighteen and none of those sixty five or over.
Controversy over Arsenal Firehouse (John Brown fort) Bell
During a Union Army occupation of Harpers Ferry, a contingent of soldiers from Marlborough, Massachusetts removed a bell hanging in the Harpers Ferry arsenal firehouse. The Harpers Ferry firehouse had served as John Brown's Fort. Several of those from Marlborough were in the fire department in Marlborough, called the "'Torrent' Fire/engine Company", according to the city of Marlborough website. They took the bell back to Marlborough where it has remained ever since. Harpers Ferry has made some attempts over the years to retrieve the bell, none of them successful.[17]
See also
References
- ^ a b "American FactFinder". United States Census Bureau. http://factfinder.census.gov. Retrieved 2008-01-31.
- ^ "US Board on Geographic Names". United States Geological Survey. 2007-10-25. http://geonames.usgs.gov. Retrieved 2008-01-31.
- ^ For example, Horace Greeley, The American Conflict: A History of the Great Rebellion in the United States of America, 1860-64. Volume: 1. (1866), p. 279; French Ensor Chadwick, Causes of the Civil War, 1859-1861 (1906) p. 74; Allan Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln (1950) v, 2 ch 3; James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (1988), p. 201; Stephen W. Sears, Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam (2003) p. 116.
- ^ "Harpers Ferry Town Website". http://www.harpersferrywv.us/. Retrieved 2007-07-19.
- ^ http://www.nps.gov/archive/hafe/armory.htm; Harpers Ferry NHP Armory and Arsenal; Retrieved on 2007-04-05
- ^ http://www.wvculture.org/history/journal_wvh/wvh56-1.html; An "Ever Present Bone of Contention": The Heyward Shepherd Memorial; Retrieved on 2008-02-24
- ^ Sullivan, David (1997). The United States Marine Corps in the Civil War - The First Year. White Mane Publishing Company, Inc.. pp. 1 to 27. ISBN 1-57249-040-3.
- ^ Reynolds, John. John Brown: Abolitionist. New York: Knopf, 2005 p. 309
- ^ "Harpers Ferry NHP Stonewall Jackson". http://www.nps.gov/hafe/jackson.htm.
- ^
"Harper's Ferry". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911. - ^ National Geographic March 1957 p.402
- ^ Columbia-Lippincott Gazeteer p. 760
- ^ "US Gazetteer files: 2000 and 1990". United States Census Bureau. 2005-05-03. http://www.census.gov/geo/www/gazetteer/gazette.html. Retrieved 2008-01-31.
- ^ [ http://www.nps.gov/hafe/parkmgmt/development-threatens-park-experience.htm Development Threatens Park Experience], National Park Service
- ^ Thomas Jefferson at Harpers Ferry, David T. Gilbert, National Park Service
- ^ Harpers Ferry Vignette, John Armstrong, page 5 of The Classic Layout Designs of John Armstrong: A Compilation, Kalmbach Publishing Company, 2001, ISBN 0890244170]
- ^ "John Brown's bell should be returned". Jim Kleinkauf, MetroWest Daily News. July 23, 2008. http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x2109422348/Kleinkauf-John-Browns-bell-should-be-returned.
Robert Harper and his brother, John, were Christened at the Trinity Church, Oxford Twp., Philadelphia County, Penn. John was Christened on 30 Oct 1720. Robert was Christened there 27th Nov Anno dom 1718 by Rev. Talbot. Their sister Sarah was also Christened there in 1717.
(Note: Robert's tombsone currently reads "born 1713", but it is believed that it was an error, misinterpreted in the past from 1718 to 1713 from a previous marker.)
Maps and satellite imagery
- Harpers Ferry, West Virginia is at coordinates 39°19′31″N 77°44′37″W / 39.325398°N 77.743599°WCoordinates: 39°19′31″N 77°44′37″W / 39.325398°N 77.743599°W
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Harpers Ferry, West Virginia |
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Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Harper's Ferry. |
- HarpersFerryWV.net
- Corporation of Harpers Ferry Website
- Harpers Ferry National Historical Park
- Harpers Ferry Historic Town Foundation
- Harpers Ferry Foundation blog
- Amtrak Station Stop, Harpers Ferry
- Pictures, histories, stories, experiences on eastghost.com
- Photos with descriptions of Harpers Ferry
- Capt. John E. P. Daingerfield's account of Harpers Ferry
- Harpers Ferry travel guide from Wikitravel
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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Mentioned in
- Maryland Campaign
- Shenandoah River
- Brown, John (History)
- Potomac (river, Maryland/Washington DC)
- Harpers Ferry, Capture of (American history)
- Gerrit Smith (American politician)
- William Dorsey Pender
- Springfield Armory
- Lee, Robert E. (History)
- America's Historic Trails: The Great Wagon Road and Wilderness Road (1999 Travel Film)
- Eli Whitney
- Battle of Crampton's Gap
- Virginia Harpers Ferry
- James Henry Lane
