The Strange Story of Harper's Ferry, with Legends of the Surrounding Country. Joseph Barry

The Strange Story of Harper's Ferry, with Legends of the Surrounding Country

      PREFACE

      The real story of Harper's Ferry is sad, and but little less wild and romantic than the old-time legends that abound in the long settled country around. The facts of the story we give with scrupulous exactness. We, ourselves, have witnessed many of the most important incidents narrated and, for what happened before our time, we have the evidence of old settlers of the highest character and veracity.

      The legends are consistent, even though they may have no other claim on our consideration. They never have more than one version, although one narrator may give more facts than another. The narratives never contradict one another in any material way, which goes to show that there was a time when everybody around believed the main facts.

      THE AUTHOR.

      CHAPTER I

      Harper's Ferry, including Bolivar, is a town which, before the war of the late rebellion, contained a population of about three thousand – nine-tenths of whom were whites. At the breaking out of hostilities nearly all the inhabitants left their homes – some casting their lots with "the confederacy" and about an equal number with the old government. On the restoration of peace, comparatively few of them returned. A great many colored people, however, who came at various times with the armies from southern Virginia, have remained, so that the proportion of the races at the place is materially changed. Also, many soldiers of the national army who married Virginia ladies, during the war, have settled there and, consequently, the town yet contains a considerable number of inhabitants. The present population may be set down at sixteen hundred whites and seven hundred blacks. The village is situated in Jefferson county, now West Virginia, at the confluence of the Potomac and the Shenandoah, at the base and in the very shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountain. The distance from Washington City is fifty-five miles, and from Baltimore eighty-one miles. The Baltimore and Ohio railroad crosses the Potomac, at the place, on a magnificent bridge and the Winchester and Potomac railroad, now absorbed by the Baltimore and Ohio, has its northern terminus in the town. The Chesapeake and Ohio canal, also, is in the immediate neighborhood. Within the last twelve years, the place has become a favorite summer resort for the people of Washington City and, from about the first of June to the last of October, it is visited by tourists from every part of the northern states and Europe.

      The scenery around the place is celebrated for its grandeur, and Thomas Jefferson has immortalized it in a fine description composed, it is said, on a remarkable rock that commands a magnificent view of both rivers and their junction. The rock itself is a wonderful freak of Nature and it is regarded by the inhabitants with pride for its being a great natural curiosity, and with veneration on account of the tradition among them that, seated on it, Jefferson wrote his "Notes on Virginia." It is, therefore, called "Jefferson's Rock." It is composed of several huge masses of stone, piled on one another (although the whole is regarded as one rock) the upper piece resting on a foundation, some years ago, so narrow that it might easily be made to sway back and forth by a child's hand. It is supported now, however, by pillars placed under it, by order of one of the old armory superintendents, the original foundation having dwindled to very unsafe dimensions by the action of the weather, and still more, by the devastations of tourists and curiosity-hunters. It is situated on the south side of "Cemetery Hill," behind the Catholic church, the lofty and glittering spire of which can be seen at a great distance, as you approach from the East, adding much beauty to the scene. The first church building there was erected in 1833 by Father Gildea. In 1896 the old edifice was torn down and a beautiful one substituted, under the supervision of the Rev. Laurence Kelley. There can be no doubt that this church, at least, is "built on a rock," for there is not soil enough anywhere near it to plant a few flowers around the House of Worship or the parsonage, and the worthy Fathers have been obliged to haul a scanty supply from a considerable distance to nourish two or three rosebushes. If "The Gates of Hell" try to prevail against this institution they had better assault from above. There will be no chance for attacking the foundation, for it is solid rock, extending, no one knows how far, into the bowels of the earth or through them, perhaps, all the way to the supposed location of those terrible gates themselves.

      On one side, the Maryland Heights, now so famous in history and, on the other, the Loudoun Heights rise majestically, and imagination might easily picture them as guardian giants defending the portals of the noble Valley of Virginia. The Maryland Heights ascend in successive plateaus to an altitude of thirteen hundred feet above the surrounding country, and two thousand feet above the level of the sea. The Loudoun Heights are not so lofty, but the ascent to them is difficult and, consequently, as the foot of man seldom treads them, they present the appearance of a more marked primeval wildness than the Maryland mountain – a circumstance which compensates the tourist for their inferiority in height. Between these two ramparts, in a gorge of savage grandeur, the lordly Potomac takes to his embrace the beautiful Shenandoah – "The Daughter of the Stars," as the Indians poetically styled this lovely stream. It will be seen, hereafter, however, that this usually serene and amiable damsel, like the daughters of men, is subject to occasional "spells" of perversity, and that, when she does take a tantrum she makes things lively around her. The former river rises in western Virginia and, tumbling from the Alleghany Mountains in an impetuous volume, traverses the northern extremity of the Valley of Virginia, forming the boundary between "The Old Dominion" and the State of Maryland. At Harper's Ferry it encounters the Blue Ridge, at right angles, and receives the tributary Shenandoah which, rising in the upper part of the great valley, flows in a northerly course, at the base of the same mountain, and unites its strength with the Potomac to cut a passage to the Ocean. This is the scenery of which Jefferson said that a sight of it was worth a voyage across the Atlantic, and no person with the least poetry in his soul will consider the praise extravagant. It is, truly, a sublime spectacle and imagination, when allowed to do so, lends its aid to the really wonderful sublimity of the scene. On the rugged cliffs, on both the Maryland and Loudoun sides are supposed to be seen, sculptured by the hand of Nature, various shapes and faces, the appearance of which changes with the seasons and as they are concealed more or less by the verdure of the trees. The giant, dwarf, centaur and almost every other animal of Nature or of Fable are here portrayed to the eye of Faith. On one rock, on the Maryland side, is a tolerably well defined face with an expression of gravity which, with some other points of resemblance, will remind one of George Washington, and, at almost any hour of any day, may be seen strangers gazing intently on the mountain in search of this likeness. Frequently, the Bald Eagle wheels in majestic circles immediately above this rock and, then, indeed, the illusion is too agreeable to be rejected by the most prosaic spectator. George Washington, chiseled by the hand of Nature in the living rock, on the summit of the Blue Ridge, with the Bird of Victory fanning his brow, is too much poetry to be thrown away and common sense matter of fact is out of the question. Of late years, a new feature has been added to the scene which gives it quite an alpine appearance. Shortly after our civil war, a man named Reid, who then lived at the foot of the Maryland Heights, procured a few goats for the amusement of his children. The goats multiplied rapidly and gradually spread up the side of the mountain, where their opportunities for mischief in gnawing the bark of trees and for avoiding the attacks of dogs were practically unlimited. Their number is now Legion and they frequently gather in great crowds on the overhanging rocks, always in charge of a dignified old buck, with a patriarchal beard, and look down placidly and, may be, with contempt on the busy hive of men below. Perhaps, the old buck often thinks, "'What fools those two legged mortals be.' They call themselves Lords of the creation and claim to own us, free sons of the mountain, and even our neighbor, the eagle, but I would like to see one of them climb up the face of this cliff and jump from crag to crag as the feeblest of my clan can do. There they go crawling along, and when one of them wants to travel a few miles he must purchase a railroad ticket for a point to which my friend, the eagle, could arrive in a few dozen flaps of his wings without the care and trouble of baggage or the fear of a run-in or a collision." Such may be and such, it is to be feared, ought to be, the reflections of that old buck.

      Before the war, the Loudoun Heights used to be the favorite roosting place of immense numbers of crows that, during the autumn and winter foraged all over the Shenandoah Valley and