Harper’s Ferry Has Historic Past

HAS HISTORIC PAST
Harper’s Ferry One of the Country’s Interesting Towns.

Quaint, Picturesque and Almost Foreign Village in the Shenandoah Valley Has Prominent Place in History.

Harper’s Ferry, Va.– Among the many interesting towns in the United States, none is more quaint, picturesque and almost foreign than Harper’s Ferry. Everywhere the new screams at the old, while the old retaliates with silence, conscious that its appeal to the imagination is preponderant. Through the business portion of the little town, runs Susquehanna [Potomac] street, extending from the station to the river from which it takes its name and uniting with the road which extends for many miles down the valley. The first impression gained of the town, is from this street, and if one is looking for the modern “City Beautiful,” disappointment will surely result for this ancient street has tales to tell, and memories to cherish.

It is history which claims attention, even before the station is out of sight. Hardly ten steps distant is the monument erected on the spot where John Brown took refuge in the old engine house. There, too, are the tablets which tell all about it, though the “Fort” itself, after visiting the World’s fair at Chicago, and rusticating for a few years at Kate Field’s summer home on the Susquahanna, has now found a permanent abiding place on the grounds of Storer college.

A stone’s throw from the station a structure whose horizontal slabs, wrinkled with age, spill over the sidewalk and women, babies, dogs and dirt, fighting for supremacy on the stone doorsteps, tell with the eloquence of action of the decadence wrought by the passing years. It was in the early part of the last century that its hospitable doors first opened to the tired wayfarer, its wide verandas echoed to the tread of gay gallant and lady fair, mail from beyond the ferry, sealed and without envelopes, or stamps, passed through its portals, and when in 1812 the army of England invaded the land, the hostelry served as headquarters for a panic-stricken countryside.

Yet this is not the oldest spot. Farther down the street looms a cottage whose shining coat of whitewash belies its ancient timbers. Part logs and partly of rough-hewn boards, the small house once served as a village inn, before its older looking competitor had dreamed of entering the field. It was here that Washington and some of his officers were several times entertained. It is now the home of “Uncle Joe.”

It was earlier still that the town received its name. When Robert Harper, a native of Oxford, England, came to the place in 1747, there was already a man in possession, a squatter named Stevens, who lived at “The Hole,” in Shehandoah street. Harper, in love with the beauty of the location, bought out Stevens, settled in his house and established the ferry from which the town takes its name. In 1775, or thereabouts, he erected the old brick house on High street, in which he lived till his death in 1782, and which, half-buried in ivy, still stands, a fitting monument to the good judgment of the old pioneer.

Ten years later, when the government needed a site for an arsenal, Washington chose Harper’s Ferry. In those days water power was even more important than it is at present, and in this particular the location was unrivaled. The place could be easily fortified, and it was near enough to the new capital at Washington to be quickly reached. Though the rocky bed of the Potomac and its swift current precluded navigation, a canal was feasible and was soon under construction. The canal is still in good condition and for many years has been owned and used by the Chesapeake and Ohio company in transporting coal from Cumberland to Georgetown.

The Shenandoah, “Daughter of the Stars,” which unites with the Potomac at Harper’s Ferry, is no less swift and rocky than its companion stream, and like that “lordly” river, its waters have been long used for industrial purposes. Mill races were constructed at an early day and ruins of a rifle factory, a flour mill, etc., remains, a subject of question and comment.