Harpers Ferry, WV -- Full of History Quiz

Answer: Yes

The first ferry at what would become Harpers Ferry was run by Peter Stephens starting in 1733. He was a squatter in the area, but in 1747, when Robert Harper took the ferry while traveling from Maryland to Virginia, he realized how valuable a crossing was to travelers at that point.

He purchased Stephens' right to the land, then in 1751 bought it from the legitimate owner, Lord Fairfax. Ten years later, he got the formal right from the Virginia legislature to operate a ferry, though he had actually been doing so for years, and in 1763, the town called "Shenandoah Falls at Mr. Harpers Ferry" was established by the Virginia General Assembly.

Answer: Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson visited the site of Harpers Ferry October 25, 1783, and looked out over the Potomac River from a large flat rock now called by his name and marked with a historic sign. He was going to Philadelphia to represent Virginia at the Confederation Conference and taking with him his daughter Martha, 11 years old, who went by the nickname Patsy, and was also in the midst of writing his "Notes on the State of Virginia." During his term as president, he would add the Louisiana Purchase, 800,000 square miles of land, to the USA.

Answer: an arsenal and armory to build and store guns

The government bought 125 acres of land from Robert Harper's heirs to build the armory and arsenal, which they finally began constructing in 1799. The Massachusetts one had been around since 1777, but both were necessary to produce all the weapons required by the US Army between 1801 and 1861. The Harpers Ferry area, squeezed between the rivers and the mountainsides, became a busy factory town. The armory manufactured over 600,000 pistols, muskets and rifles between those years.

Concerning the wrong answers: There were many iron furnaces around the country, usually close to where iron ore was found, and the government purchased what it needed from private sellers. The same was true for boots and shoes, which were sometimes assembled in factories or sometimes given out as piece work, and the same for uniforms. Militia companies usually had to furnish their own uniforms. That left only regular Army contracts to be let, and the regular Army was quite small at times, falling to six or seven thousand before the Mexican War, then dropping back to around ten thousand before the Civil War.

Answer: canal and railroad

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal reached Harper's Ferry from Washington in 1833. Eventually, it would run from Cumberland in Western Maryland through Harper's Ferry to Washington DC, and could bring coal from the mines where it began. In 1834, the Baltimore and Ohio completed its tracks to the area, and by the time of the Civil War in 1861, the Baltimore and Ohio ran from Wheeling and Parkersburg in western Virginia to Baltimore in the east.

Answer: Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee and Lt. J. E. B. Stuart

John Brown started with a group of 21 on Oct. 16, 1859. Surprised in the dark, they shot and mortally wounded a free black baggage porter for the B&O Railroad about 1 a.m., awakening a local doctor, John Starry. Dr. Starry tried to help, could do nothing, and was allowed to leave. He told nearby residents including the neighboring town of Charles Town, where ringing bells alerted everyone. Local citizens and militia trapped Brown in the fire-engine house at the arsenal.

The closest US troops, Marines, were called out. An Army colonel, Robert E. Lee, was on leave nearby, and he was called from his leave to lead them by Lt. J. E. B. Stuart, who volunteered to be Lee's aide de camp. They all arrived by train Oct. 18. Unable to negotiate with Brown, they stormed the engine house, capturing or killing the insurrectionists. Brown was tried for treason in nearby Charles Town, found guilty and hanged, less than two months after he had entered Harper's Ferry. The whole event fascinated the nation.

Answer: railroad engines on the B&O Railroad track

Supposedly, Jackson took advantage of political instability in Maryland and the B&O Railroad, neither of which were ready to anger Virginia, which had not yet officially ratified its ordinance of secession. He asked that trains be run through Harper's Ferry on a tighter and tighter schedule, to avoid disturbing the sleep of Virginia militia soldiers garrisoned there, until trains could only run from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. When trains became backed up, he blocked the track with soldiers on either end, preventing trains from going forward or back and forcing them all to surrender, on the very day Virginia ratified secession.

James I. Robertson Jr. in "Stonewall Jackson: The Man, The Soldier, The Legend" (1997) wrote "Delightful as the story is, it is totally fictional," and explained his detailed reasons against believing it and how it became attached to Jackson. Byron Farwell in "Stonewall: A Biography of General Thomas J. Jackson" (1992) wrote that "it almost certainly never happened," and also gave his detailed reasoning why he believed it didn't occur and how it got into Jackson's legacy.

Answer: Confederate General Jackson won, capturing 12,000 US soldiers

Once Union General Miles realized the town was surrounded with artillery, he immediately suggested surrender, but was mortally wounded by an artillery shell. Miles was not well liked by his men, and some historians have even speculated the artillery came from friendly fire.

The surrender of over 12,000 Union soldiers was the largest until the Battle of Bataan in World War II, and Jackson also captured the armory of Harper's Ferry, with its thousands of small arms and dozens of artillery pieces. Both sides lost a few dozen killed and a few hundred wounded, mostly in the preliminary skirmishing before the artillery was in position, when defense appeared imposssible.

After processing the prisoners, Jackson and his men were immediately ordered to Antietam, to take part in the bloody battle there.

Answer: a black civil rights organization

The Niagara Movement, which met first in 1905 at Niagara Falls, was founded by W. E. B. Du Bois, a leading African-American writer and scholar in his day, and William Monroe Trotter, a black businessman, editor, and spokesman for black rights. An organization to promote black civil rights, it wanted to end segregation and confront whites rather than be conciliatory, bringing a change as great as the "mighty current" of the Niagara River.

The movement held its 1906 meeting on Aug. 15-18 at Storer College, now within the land owned by Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. Those attending could walk to the arsenal where John Brown made his stand. When they got there, they took their shoes off in reverence. DuBois said the convention was "one of the greatest meetings that American Negroes ever held."

The Niagara Movement soon died out, though. Storer College refused to let the members back, saying there was friction after the first meeting from its supporters. The group met in Boston, but was having its own problems over whether or not to let women join. That was solved, but continuing problems made the movement decline. In 1910, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded and grew to become the leading representative of blacks, spelling the final end of the Niagara Movement.

Answer: the Appalachian Trail

The approximately 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail runs through 14 states, making a passage directly through the scenic town of Harpers Ferry in West Virginia. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy moved its headquarters from Washington, DC, to Harpers Ferry in 1972.

Answer: Harpers Ferry National Historic Park was created

The majority of the town was incorporated into Harpers Ferry National Historic Park. Many of the individual homes have been recognized by the National Register of Historic Places, but the park allowed the National Park Service to take over control, so that the many historic structures, roads, paths, etc. would be retained, keeping the historic flavor of the town as it was at the time of John Brown's raid.

The population of the town, according to the US census, was 1,339 in 1860 when the armory was underway, fell after that, reaching a 20th Century high of 822 in 1950, then dropped below 300 in the early 21st Century.