Harper's Ferry, WV, and Shenandoah National Park, VA 6/17/14

Harper’s Ferry, WV, was built at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers.  Before the arrival of Europeans, native villages like the Powhatan village of Pomeiock, pictured below, were common in this area.

 

 

By 1859 Harper’s Ferry had become a major manufacturer of weapons for the U.S. military. 

 

It was not uncommon for the U.S. Armory in Harper’s Ferry to “rent” slaves from local slaveholders when labor was needed.

In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that all people of African ancestry--slaves as well as those who were free--could never become citizens of the United States.  The court also ruled that the federal government did not have the power to prohibit slavery in its territories.  In 1859, the court upheld the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.  Dubbed the "Bloodhound Law" for the dogs used to track runaway slaves, it required all escaped slaves be returned to their masters and that citizens of free states cooperate in this law.

These decisions shocked abolitionists (those who wanted to end slavery) and convinced people like John Brown and his followers that armed force was necessary to end slavery.  On October 16, 1859, hoping to arm a slave rebellion, John Brown and 21 followers attempted to capture the munitions factory and the arsenal where weapons were stored at Harper’s Ferry.  (Oil painting by Ole Peter Hanson Balling, a Norwegian immigrant who served in the Union army during the Civil War, 1872)

On October 17, local citizens and militia killed some of his followers and trapped Brown in the fire station, later dubbed “John Brown’s fort.”

The next day the U.S. Marines arrived and stormed the fire house, capturing Brown, who was later tried and executed.  His insurrection found favor among many northern abolitionists, but some southerners saw it as a sign that they must either break their ties with the Union or be destroyed by an increasingly fanatical north.

John Brown’s fort as it looks today.

In mid-afternoon we entered the northern gate of Shenandoah National Park and drove along Skyline Drive, a road that follows the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains.