Oh, Little Town of Harpers Ferry, How Still We See Thee Lie
Harpers Ferry: a quaint little town, vegan restaurants, a national park, Appalachian Trail headquarters, great place to hop a train to DC or Pittsburgh, a Kansas album cover or a great place to start a civil war? It’s all in how you look at it, who’s looking, and when.
This is a picture I took on a hike above the town on Loudoun Heights Saturday and the painting of John Brown in the John Brown museum.
Figure 1: “Harpers Ferry” by George Jones is licenced under CC SA 4.0
Saturday I went hiking above Harpers Ferry, WV. Today it’s just a sleepy little town with a good little vegan restaurant, headquarters of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and a lot of national park buildings (most of the old downtown). But back in the day (1859), it housed the federal armory, gun factory and John Brown thought it would be a great place start a slave rebellion. He was wrong. But he lit the fuse of the Civil War that ended slavery. His short lived rebellion was put down by federal troops lead by … Robert E. Lee, later commander of the Confederate army and JEB Stewart, a confederate general. And you may even recognize a Kansas (70s band) album cover in the painting of Brown-as-Moses with a bible in one hand and a gun in the other.
Turns out there is no museum in Harper Ferry dedicated to the man who enforced the status quo. I guess we know who was “on the wrong side of history.
#10 of #100DaysToOffload take 2, https://100daystooffload.com/