When was harpers ferry founded

Around these enterprises grew a small village that was known as "Shenandoah Falls at Mr. Harper's Ferry" until shortly after the War for Independence, when it was shortened to Shenandoah Falls; in the town incorporated as Harpers Ferry. Washington himself chose the site, which he felt was "the most eligible spot on the river.

In the armory completed its first arms and by was producing 10, muskets a year. Nine years later the Government awarded John Hall, a Maine gunsmith and inventor, a contract to manufacture 1, unique, breech-loading flintlock rifles of his own invention. These were made on so exact a scale that all parts were interchangeable. This was the first completely successful application of the principle that led to modern mass production.

Two buildings on Virginius Virginious Island were assigned for Hall's use. His rifle proved so successful that the contract was repeatedly renewed, and in the ensuing years Hall's Rifle Works produced thousands of them.

In a new Federal rifle factory replaced the works. As one of the few water-level gateways through the Blue Ridge Mountains, Harpers Ferry gap early attracted the attention of transportation interests. The first of these was the Patowmack Potowmack Co. Though not a financial success, this canal complex was the forerunner of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, on the Maryland side, which carried freight on mule-drawn barges from the 's until the 's.

The Patowmack Co. The Potomac River Valley, as a westward route, has figured prominently in the growth of our Nation. Through it have passed the Indian trail, colonial wagon road, canal, railroad, telegraph and telephone, and the modern superhighway. These improving means of communication linked the East and West socially and commercially.

Before the War for Independence, internal transportation was largely confined to the East along the tidewater reaches of the rivers and hays. Soon after the settled frontier had extended beyond the Allegheny Mountains, enterprising men made plans to connect the East and West by a navigable waterway. As early as George Washington, then still in his twenties, promoted a system of river and canal navigation along the Potomac Valley.

Largely through his efforts the Patowmack Co. As the first president of the company, Washington actively engaged in the project until he became President of the United States in and resigned.

By the company had substantially completed five short skirting canals with locks around falls and rapids between Georgetown and Harpers Ferry to provide for navigation as far as Cumberland, Md. The largest of the five canals skirted the impassable Great Falls of the Potomac.

Harpers Ferry is haunted. The population is less than people. Thomas Jefferson loved Harpers Ferry. You can bike from D. Give us feedback. Read Next View. Manor at Berkeley Springs. Residence Inn by Marriott Morgantown.

Brass Pineapple Inn. Hampton Inn Martinsburg. TownePlace Suites by Marriott Parkersburg. Hampton Inn Lewisburg. Hampton Inn Wheeling. Hampton Inn Summersville. Wingate by Wyndham Hurricane WV. Armory and Arsenal, destroying over 15, weapons to keep them out of enemy hands. Just ten days later, on April 28, Colonel Thomas J. Over the next seven weeks, all machinery and tools from the armory were removed and shipped to Richmond, Virginia, and Fayetteville, North Carolina , to produce weapons for the Confederacy.

Lee found that the Union soldiers had not retreated during his Maryland Campaign. He then sent in his Confederate forces to take the city, as it was on his supply line and could control one of his possible retreat routes. The battle between commanders Colonel Dixon S. With 12, Federal troops captured by Jackson, the surrender at Harpers Ferry was the largest surrender of U.

This was a dramatic prelude to the great Battle at Antietam , Maryland, that ended the first southern invasion of the North. During the Civil War, the former armory guard and fire engine house, known as the John Brown Fort, was used as a prison, a powder magazine, and a quartermaster supply house. Though people broke off pieces of brick and wood off the fort as souvenirs, amazingly, it was never destroyed and, in fact, was the only Armory building to escape destruction during the Civil War.

After the war, people began to return and rebuild, but Harpers Ferry would never again be the industrial center that had maintained its prosperity before the Civil War, and its population dropped. In , a school for freedmen was established in the war-torn building of the former U. Over the following years, the school developed into a black college that operated until During the post-Civil War years, the towns of Bolivar and Harpers Ferry were united as one local governing entity.

Later, the towns were divided again in In , floods damaged most of the buildings that were left along the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers. More floods in later years effectively ended all industrial production in the area. It then became a sleepy little town that was primarily based on farming. However, after attracting very few visitors, it was dismantled again and left on a vacant lot.

Three years later, however, it was saved in by Washington, D. She soon spearheaded a campaign to return the fort to Harpers Ferry. It was then moved to the Storer College campus and was used as a museum.

By the s, much of the lower town of Harpers Ferry was deteriorating, and in , it was established as the Harpers Ferry National Monument due to its many historical events. In , a U.