Harpers Ferry is a historic town in Jefferson County, West Virginia, in the lower Shenandoah Valley. The town's population was 269 at the 2020 United States census. Situated at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, where Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia meet, it is the easternmost town in West Virginia as well as its lowest point above sea level.
Jefferson County is located in the Shenandoah Valley in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. It is the easternmost county of the U.S. state of West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 57,701. Its county seat is Charles Town. The county was founded in 1801, and today is part of the Washington metropolitan area.
Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, originally Harpers Ferry National Monument, is located at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers in and around Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. The park includes the historic center of Harpers Ferry, notable as a key 19th-century industrial area and as the scene of John Brown's failed abolitionist uprising. It contains the most visited historic site in the state of West Virginia, John Brown's Fort.
John Brown's Fort was initially built in 1848 for use as a guard and fire engine house by the federal Harpers Ferry Armory, in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. An 1848 military report described the building as "An engine and guard-house 35 1/2 x 24 feet, one story brick, covered with slate, and having copper gutters and down spouts…"
Tudor Place is a Federal-style mansion in Washington, D.C. that was originally the home of Thomas Peter and his wife, Martha Parke Custis Peter, a granddaughter of Martha Washington. The property, comprising one city block on the crest of Georgetown Heights, had an excellent view of the Potomac River.
Happy Retreat is a historic property in Charles Town, West Virginia, which was originally owned and developed by Charles Washington, the youngest brother of George Washington and the founder of Charles Town.
The Harpers Ferry Armory, more formally known as the United States Armory and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, was the second federal armory created by the United States government; the first was the Springfield Armory. It was located in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, which since 1863 has been part of West Virginia. It was both an arsenal, manufacturing firearms, and an armory, a storehouse for firearms. Along with the Springfield Armory, it was instrumental in the development of machining techniques to make interchangeable parts of precisely the same dimensions.
Osborne Perry Anderson was an African-American abolitionist and the only surviving African-American member of John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. He became a soldier in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
Ridgedale is a 19th-century Greek Revival plantation house and farm on a plateau overlooking the South Branch Potomac River north of Romney, West Virginia, United States. The populated area adjacent to Washington Bottom Farm is known as Ridgedale. The farm is connected to West Virginia Route 28 via Washington Bottom Road.
The Kennedy Farm is a National Historic Landmark property on Chestnut Grove Road in rural southern Washington County, Maryland. It is notable as the place where the radical abolitionist John Brown planned and began his raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859. Also known as the John Brown Raid Headquarters and Kennedy Farmhouse, the log, stone, and brick building has been restored to its appearance at the time of the raid. The farm is now owned by a preservation nonprofit.
Blakeley, near Charles Town, West Virginia is also known as the Washington - Chew - Funkhouser House, and was built in 1820 by John Augustine Washington II, great-nephew of George Washington and grandson of John Augustine Washington. It is a contemporary of its neighbor, Claymont Court, built across Bullskin Run by John's brother, Bushrod Corbin Washington. John Washington did not attempt to match the grandeur of Claymont Court, as he was in line to inherit Mount Vernon, and did so in 1829.
The Allstadt House and Ordinary was built about 1790 on land owned by the Lee family near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, including Phillip Ludwell Lee, Richard Bland Lee and Henry Lee III. The house at the crossroads was sold to the Jacob Allstadt family of Berks County, Pennsylvania in 1811. Allstadt operated an ordinary in the house, and a tollgate on the Harpers Ferry-Charles Town Turnpike, while he resided farther down the road in a stone house. The house was enlarged by the Allstadts c. 1830. The house remained in the family until the death of John Thomas Allstadt in 1923, the last survivor of John Brown's Raid.
The Harpers Ferry Historic District comprises about one hundred historic structures in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. The historic district includes the portions of the central town not included in Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, including large numbers of early 19th-century houses built by the United States Government for the workers at the Harpers Ferry Armory. Significant buildings and sites include the site of the Armory, the U.S Armory Potomac Canal, the Harpers Ferry Train Station, and Shenandoah Street, Potomac Street, and High or Washington Street. The National Historic Park essentially comprises the lower, flood-prone areas of the town, while the Historic District comprises the upper town.
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was an effort by abolitionist John Brown, from October 16 to 18, 1859, to initiate a slave revolt in Southern states by taking over the United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. It has been called the dress rehearsal for, or tragic prelude to, the American Civil War.
Lewis William Washington was a great-grandnephew of President George Washington. He is most remembered today for his involuntary participation in John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859. He was taken as hostage and some of his slaves were briefly freed. As he outranked the other hostages he was their unofficial spokesperson, and he testified in Brown's subsequent trial, and before the Senate committee investigating the raid.
Rockland is the home of Virginia's Rust family, near Leesburg, Virginia. The property housed slaves to work their farm. The property was acquired by General George Rust from the heirs of Colonel Burgess Ball in 1817. General Rust built the present brick residence about 1822, incorporating an older frame house as a rear service wing.
Harry and Louisiana Beall Paull Mansion, also known as "Morningside" and the Charles H. and Geraldine Beall House, is a historic home located at Wellsburg, Brooke County, West Virginia. It was built in 1907–1911, and is a stuccoed dwelling in the Mediterranean Revival style with Spanish Colonial Revival style elements. It features a five bay portico with a hipped roof and eight columns. It also has wrought iron porches and pan tile roofs. It was designed by noted Wheeling architect Frederick F. Faris (1870–1927).
Col. John Tayloe II was a Virginia planter and politician who served on the Virginia Governor's Council, also known as the Virginia Council of State. A colonial Colonel in the Virginia Militia, he is better known as an ironmaster, horse-raising enthusiast and planter.
Israel Greene was a member of the United States Marine Corps and the leader of the company of Marines that captured John Brown during his raid on Harpers Ferry. He later left the USMC and served as an officer in the Confederate States Marine Corps during the American Civil War.
Cleremont Farm is a historic home and farm located near Upperville, Loudoun County, Virginia. The original section of the house was built in two stages between about 1820 and 1835, and added onto subsequently in the 1870s. 1940s. and 1980s. It consists of a stone portion, a log portion, and a stone kitchen wing. It has a five bay, two-story, gable-roofed center section in the Federal style. A one-bay, one-story Colonial Revival-style pedimented entrance portico was built in the early 1940s. Also on the property are the contributing original 1+1⁄2-story, stuccoed stone dwelling (1761); a stone kitchen from the late 19th or early 20th century; a stuccoed frame tenant house built about 1940; a stone carriage mount; and a series of five stone walls.
