Harpers Ferry, West Virginia

We had a nice week in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Although, "keeping it real", it rained five out of the seven days we were here, and I find myself becoming a little depressed with all the rain. Fortunately, when we arrived last Saturday, it was beautiful. We were able to sight see on Thursday and then again on Friday. Oh, and by the way, we hope you had a nice Cinco de Mayo.

Take me home country roads. 

Site for the week, Harpers Ferry KOA.

Harpers Ferry was first settled in 1732 by Peter Stephens, whose "squatter's rights" were bought in 1747 by Robert Harper, for whom the town was named. In 1750 Harper was given a patent on 125 acres at the present location of the town. In 1761 Harper established a ferry across the Potomac River, making the town a starting point for settlers moving into the Shenandoah Valley. In 1763 Harpers Ferry officially became a town. 

On October 25, 1783, Thomas Jefferson visited Harpers Ferry. He viewed "the passage of the Potomac through the Blue Ridge" from a rock which is now named for him. Jefferson called the site "perhaps one of themes stupendous scenes in nature."

Jefferson Rock.

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 see if any improvements were needed and to determine the need for bypass canals.

Potomac River.

In 1794 Washington's familiarity with the area led him to propose the site for a new United States armory and arsenal. Some of his family moved to the area; Charles Washington, youngest full brother of the President, founded the city of Charles Town, some six miles to the southwest. President Washing's great-great-nephew, Colonel Lewis Washington, was held hostage during the John Brown's raid in 1859.

This building is now called "John Brown's Fort".

John Brown and his twenty-one men gave their lives for freedom during the raid.

In 1796 the federal government purchased a parcel of land from the heirs of Robert Harper, and three years later, construction began on the US Armory and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry.  Between 1801 and 1861, when it was destroyed to prevent capture during the Civil War, the armory produced more than 600,000 muskets, rifles and pistols.  

In 1833 the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal reached Harpers Ferry, linking it with Washington, D.C. in 1834 the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad reached Harpers Ferry and brought train service through the town.

Train station

Tracks

"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." 

Will Rogers

On 16 October 1859, the radical abolitionist John Brown led a group of 21 men in a raid on the arsenal.  Brown and his men attacked and captured several buildings; he hoped to use the captured weapons to initiate a slave uprising throughout the South.  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.  A contingent of US Marines, led by then-Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee, stormed the engine house and captured most of the raiders, killing a few and suffering a single casualty themselves.  Brown was tried for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, convicted, and hanged in Charles Town.  The raid was a catalyst for the Civil War.

The Civil War was disastrous for Harpers Ferry, which changed hands eight times between 1861 and 1865.  When Virginia seceded in April 1861, the US garrison attempted to burn the arsenal and destroy the machinery, to prevent the Confederates from using it.  Locals saved the equipment, which the Confederate Army transferred to a more secure location in its capital of Richmond.  The US Army never renewed arms production in Harpers Ferry.

After the end of the Civil War, in 1867, the historically black Storer College was founded on Camp Hill by Reverend Nathan Cook Brackett.  Notable alumni include jazz legend Don Redman and the first President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Nnamdi Azikiwe.  Storer College closed in June 1955, and the campus is now part of the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.

In 1944 most of the town became part of the National Park Service and is now maintained as the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. All areas of the town not within the Park are contained within the federally-recognized Harpers Ferry Historic District.

Cute shopping and restaurants are in these historic buildings.

It was fun to walk around and see these old buildings.

Just a few feet away is the Appalachian Trail.

These stairs are on the Appalachian Trail. The trial is almost 2200 miles 

and is in fourteen states from Georgia to Maine.

St. Peter's Catholic Church.

It is on the Appalachian Trail.

It was NOT destroyed during the Civil War.

Our West Virginia picture for our map.

White Hall Tavern. An 1850's community gathering place. This was across from the 

Armory where many workers would raise a glass or three before and during work.

"Hog Alley didn't get its name in a very pretty way. During the John Brown raid, the first raider killed was a black man by the name of Dangerfield Newby. Dangerfield had been freed by his white father, but he had a wife and seven children held in slavery in Warrenton, Virginia. His wife's master had told him that for the sum of $1,500 he could buy his wife and his youngest baby, who had just started to crawl. 

Dangerfield earned that amount of money and went back to Warrenton to purchase his wife and baby, only to have his wife's master raise the price. The free black man then joined John Brown in the hope of freeing not only his wife and youngest baby, but his entire family."

"There were a lot of guns in Harpers Ferry, since they were made in the town and stored in the 22 building armory complex near the train tracks. There was little ammunition for the guns, however, and townspeople would fire anything they could find for their guns. One man was shooting 6-inch spikes from his powder loaded gun.

"When John Brown raided the town in October of 1859, it was one of those spikes that hit the throat of Dangerfield Newby. He was killed instantly.

"The people of Harpers Ferry, frustrated and angered by John Brown and his raiders, took the body of Dangerfield Newby and stabbed it repeatedly with their rusty knives. They left the mutilated body in the alley to be eaten by the hungry hogs.

"Some night, if you are walking down Hog Alley and see a man dressed in baggy trousers and an old slouched hat with a terrible scar across his throat, you will know you have met Dangerfield Newby. He is still roaming our streets, trying to free his family."

Hog Alley

From the establishment of the town in the 1700s through today, this landscape has been exploited for business. From her house on High Street in 1906, Clara Riley watched as sign painters created a huge advertisement, out of a milk and whitewash mixture, on the side of the mountain. Mrs. Riley remembered the year because she was in labor with her first child while the sign was being painted.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, painting advertisements on brick buildings and stone cliffs was very popular. Although the Mennen’s powder sign may have been the largest in the area, it was not alone (The wall around the famous John Brown Fort advertised liver pills). As transportation shifted to roads and automobiles, advertisements moved to billboards and highways.

Can you see the words? The advertisement is 

for Mennen's Borated Talcum Toilet Powder.

Shenandoah Pulp Factory owner Thomas Savery erected this large mill to provide wood pulp for the paper industry in 1887. Ten turbines, arranged in pairs in the mill's five massive sluiceways, powered wood grinders, rolling machines, and other pulp-making machinery.  By the 1920's Savery's mill had the capacity to produce 15 tons of ground wood pulp daily. The mill closed in 1935 because of several unprofitable years. In 1936 a record flood destroyed the building.

It was a rainy day and we didn't walk down to the ruins.

Shenandoah Canal's lower locks.

Fun fact: Hatfields and McCoys, two American Appalachian mountaineer families who, with their kinfolk and neighbors, engaged in a legendary feud that attracted nationwide attention in the 1880s and ’90s and prompted judicial and police actions, one of which drew an appeal up to the U.S. Supreme Court (1888).

The Hatfields were headed by William Anderson (“Devil Anse”) Hatfield (1839–1921), and the McCoys by Randolph (“Rand’l”) McCoy (1839–1921), each of whom fathered 13 children (some sources claim 16 for McCoy). 

The families lived on opposite sides of a border stream, the Tug Fork—the McCoys in Pike county, Kentucky, and the Hatfields in Logan county (or Mingo county, formed from a portion of Logan county in 1895), West Virginia. Each had numerous kinfolk and allies in the respective counties in which they lived.

The origins of the feud are obscure. Some attribute it to hostilities formed during the American Civil War, in which the McCoys were Unionists and the Hatfields were Confederates, others to Rand’l McCoy’s belief that a Hatfield stole one of his hogs in 1878. 

However, although animosities had built up and occasional fights had broken out, the first major bloodletting did not occur until 1882, when Ellison Hatfield was mortally shot in a brawl with McCoys and, in revenge, the Hatfields kidnapped and executed three McCoy brothers—Tolbert, Phamer, and Randolph, Jr. 

These murders sharpened the backwoods warfare, and thereafter Hatfields and McCoys repeatedly ambushed and killed one another. Hatfields arrested in their home county and McCoys arrested in their home county were invariably released or acquitted of their deeds because of their respective local support and influence. Fighting reached a climax in 1888. On New Year’s Day a group of Hatfields led by Jim Vance attacked the home of patriarch Rand’l McCoy, missing him but shooting dead a son and a daughter and burning his houses. In retaliation, a posse of McCoys and neighbors, headed by a Pike county deputy sheriff, made successive raids across the border into West Virginia, killing Vance and at least three others, battling with a West Virginia posse, and eventually rounding up nine of the Hatfield clan for indictment and trial in Kentucky. West Virginia filed suit in federal court, charging kidnapping and lawlessness; Kentucky defended the abduction; and newspapers all over the country began carrying front-page stories of the feud and sending in reporters. Finally, in May 1888, a divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled (in Plyant Mahon v. Abner Justice, jailer of Pike County, Ky.) that Kentucky had the legal right to detain the accused for trial. The trials, later in the year, resulted in one sentence of death by hanging and eight sentences of imprisonment.

Randolph McCoy

Friday, was a totally gorgeous day, sun shining, high 60's and God placed beautiful clouds to look at up in His glorious sky. "The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is delaying the work of His hands." Psalm 19:1 (NASB).

Beautiful clouds in West Virginia.

Also, on Friday, we found a Mexican Restaurant to help us celebrate Cinco de Mayo. My hopes were not high being that we are in West Virginia, but the Mexican Restaurant in Bismarck, North Dakota didn't disappoint. Let's just say that Mi Degollado was, well, how do I say this, the chips and salsa were good. I wasn't a fan of my dinner and either was hubby. We had a nice server, so that helped.

Nervous about trying their food.

It was a packed house by 5:00pm, people were waiting outside.

Another new state! Here are the state bird, tree, flower and motto for West Virginia. 

 
*West Virginia: Cardinal (Bird), Sugar Maple (Tree), Rhododendron (Flower), and Montani semper liberi is Latin for "Mountaineers Are Always Free". (Motto). 

Saturday we made our way to Maryland. Forecast shows for more rain, I will survive. 

If there is something special you would like me to take a picture of, please let me know!
 
Drop a comment for me and let me know your thoughts on the blog.
 
God, the RV & me...