| We travelled from York, Pennsylvania to Winchester, West Virginia via Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, staying one night in Winchester.
____________________________________________________ Harpers Ferry National Historical Park is located at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers in and around Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. {Harper’s Ferry being at the junction of West Virginia, Virginia and Maryland states]. The park includes land in the Shenandoah Valley in Jefferson County, West Virginia; Washington County, Maryland and Loudoun County, Virginia. The park is managed by the National Park Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior. The park includes the historic town of Harpers Ferry, notable as a center of 19th-century industry and as the scene of John Brown’s failed abolitionist uprising. Consisting of almost 4,000 acres (16 km2), it includes the site of which Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “The passage of the Potomac through the Blue Ridge is perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in Nature” after visiting the area in 1783. The park was originally planned as a memorial to John Brown, responsible for what is by far the most famous incident in Harpers Ferry’s history, his 1859 raid and capture of the federal armory. NPS officials in the 1930s focused on John Brown’s raid and the Civil War to justify acquiring parts of Harpers Ferry for a historical and military park. Like the figure of John Brown himself, this proved enormously controversial, with opposition from the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. In 2018, there was no mention of John Brown on the Park’s home page (http://www.nps.gov/hafe), although the raid is covered in the history section of the website. Source: Wikipedia Winchester and Frederick County was once Shawnee Indian camping grounds to which Pennsylvania Quakers came to settle in 1732. The town was named Frederick Town after Frederick, father of George III of England. In 1752 the name was changed to Winchester in honor of the ancient English capital. In the mid-1700’s, Frederick County became the military and political training ground for George Washington, who came here at the age of sixteen to survey the lands of Thomas, the Sixth lord Fairfax. Washington built Fort Loudoun during the French and Indian War and, at twenty-six, was elected to his first public office as the county’s representative to the House of Burgesses. During the Revolutionary War, Daniel Morgan’s Rifleman from Frederick County were among the first who came to Washington’s aid against the British. Winchester was a strategic prize of great importance during the Civil War. The area became the scene of six battles during the Civil War, and the city itself changed flags around seventy times during the four year conflict. General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson demonstrated his military leadership in the Valley Campaign. Source: Winchester Visitors Bureau |
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James Brown’s Fort, Harper’s Ferry
James Brown Carving
Site of Market House, near Arsenal Square and next to Shenandoah River
Lower Town Historic Area
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad
Railroad Bridge and Appalachion Trail Footbridge over Potomac River
Old bridge over the Potomac River
Old Town
Handley Regional LIbrary Handley Library is a historic library building located at 100 West Piccadilly Street in Winchester, Virginia, United States. Completed in 1913, construction of the Beaux-Arts style building was funded by a wealthy Pennsylvania businessman. The building serves as the main branch for Winchester’s library system, the Handley Regional Library System. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and Virginia Landmarks Register in 1969. The Handley Library is “perhaps Virginia’s purest expression of the regal and florid Beaux-Arts classicism.” It was designed to resemble an open book, with the dome representing the spine and the wings representing the covers. The limestone building consists of an octagonal base and a central dome. A three-arched entrance faces the intersection of Braddock and Piccadilly Streets. Two wings flank the dome and feature single-pitched roofs with dormer lights, balustrades and Ionic colonnades. Heavy stone reliefs of figures and fruit flank several windows and doors.
Outside Civil War Museum
Patsy Cline Historic House
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