Harpers Ferry: John Brown & the Road to Civil War
Harpers Ferry, United States
Harpers Ferry sits where the Potomac and Shenandoah meet, a narrow crossing that shaped its history and made it a key industrial and military site. The town grew around the federal armory, where muskets and rifles were made, and became the scene of John Brown’s 1859 raid, a turning point in the slavery crisis. Repeatedly battered in the Civil War, it still preserves the nineteenth century in places like Shenandoah Street, John Brown’s Fort, the Armory Grounds, Jefferson Rock, Lockwood House, and White Hall Tavern.
The stops
- 01 Shenandoah Street about 1880
Shenandoah Street about 1880 is a preserved late nineteenth-century streetscape in lower Harpers Ferry that helps visitors visualize the town after the Civil War.
- 02 John Brown's Fort
John Brown's Fort is the small former armory fire engine and guard house where John Brown and his men made their last stand during the raid of October 1859.
- 03 Original Site Robert Harper's Ferry
Original Site Robert Harper's Ferry marks the area near the rivers where Robert Harper established the ferry crossing that gave Harpers Ferry its name in 1747.
- 04 Armory Grounds
The Armory Grounds are the site of the federal weapons complex established in 1799 at Harpers Ferry, where muskets and rifles were manufactured for the United States government.
- 05 St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church
Saint Peter's Roman Catholic Church is a nineteenth-century stone church on the hillside above lower Harpers Ferry and one of the town's most prominent surviving religious buildings.
- 06 St. John's Episcopal Church
Saint John's Episcopal Church is a mid-nineteenth-century church in Harpers Ferry that survives as part of the town's historic Civil War-era hillside streetscape.
- 07 Jefferson Rock
Jefferson Rock is a stone outcrop above Harpers Ferry celebrated for its panoramic view of the Potomac and Shenandoah river gap and for Thomas Jefferson's 1783 visit.
- 08 Harper Cemetery
Harper Cemetery is the hillside burial ground in Harpers Ferry associated with the Harper family and other local burials overlooking the town.
- 09 Lockwood House
Lockwood House is a preserved nineteenth-century building in Harpers Ferry associated with wartime occupation and later educational history on Camp Hill.
- 10 White Hall Tavern
White Hall Tavern is a historic eighteenth- and nineteenth-century tavern building in lower Harpers Ferry that represents everyday commercial and social life in the old town.
The narration at every stop is in the app — this is the map of where it takes you, with a line on each stop.
Walk Harpers Ferry: John Brown & the Road to Civil War with a voice in your ear.
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