Frederick Gutekunst (September 25, 1831 - April 27, 1917) was an American photographer. His photographic career started in 1856 in Philadelphia and his business grew during the Civil War. After the war his reputation was known outside of Philadelphia and the military so that distinguished individuals were coming to having their portrait made by the master. Eventually, the Gutekunst studio became a photographic industry with two studios in Philadelphia and a large photo reproduction press. He continued working until he died in 1917 from Bright's Disease. When comparing the overall number of portraits made by Gutekunst and other studios in Philadelphia during the same period one can find similar quality work being accomplished, but photographs with the name Gutekunst on them are of a consistent high quality in different sizes and throughout the years and it is this consistency that made him the Dean of American Photographers.[1]
Early life
Frederick Gutekunst was the son of a cabinet maker who claimed to have been born in Germantown in Philadelphia and this story of his birthplace is often reproduced in histories. However, according to his obituary in The Photographic Journal of America[2] he was born in Germany, possibly Haiterbach, Württemberg as was his father.[3] Hence, he was born in a "German" "town". The reason we should accept this account is due to the friendship between Mr. Gutekunst and his former assistant and at the time of the obituary the founder and publisher of The Photographic Journal of America, Mr. Edward L. Wilson. Mr. Gutekunst most likely wanted clients visiting his studio and gallery to believe that he was born in the more rural and gentile Germantown than a poor immigrant ghetto along the Delaware River waterfront. His birth date is another matter as there were two different dates published during his lifetime. Additionally, among census records there are different years recorded for his birth. The 1880 Census lists his year of birth as 1831, but other Censuses list him as born in 1833 and 1835.
The first listing for Frederick Gutekunst Sr. in Philadelphia is in McElroy's city directory in 1837 as: Gutterhurst, Frederick, carpenter, at St. John Street (currently N. American St.) north of George in the Northern Liberties section of Philadelphia. This would be the block where N. American St. meets Germantown Ave. This was known as a neighborhood of German immigrants and where Philadelphia's second German Catholic church, St. Peter's, was established. One of the remnants of the German character of this part of town is the German Society of Pennsylvania on Spring Garden St.
Frederick Gutekunst Sr. wanted young Frederick to become a lawyer and so he was indentured for six years to Joseph Simon Cohen, prothonotary to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. However, by the time he was eighteen he became more interested in the art of the daguerreotype and became a frequent visitor to Marcus Aurelius Root's gallery, and his talents turned toward chemistry. One of Frederick's experiments was a method to mass-produce daguerreotypes; although it was a success, it was not financially practical.
Frederick's father found work for him in the drug store owned by the consul for the Kingdom of Wurttemberg in Philadelphia, Frederick Klett, who was also one of the founders of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy from which Frederick Gutekunst graduated in 1853.
He found employment at Avery Toby's drug store at 1235 Market St., later at 451 Market St., and spent two years working there. His interest in photography was renewed and he was able to exchange a homemade battery for a camera owned by Isaac Norris, later the Secretary of the Franklin Institute. His work and ambitions in photography grew and he bought a better lens for five dollars from the "Buckeye Blacksmith" who ran an ambrotype gallery near Toby's drug store, and this was where he was introduced to the ambrotype process. His father, the accomplished cabinetmaker, proceeded to build a camera for the lens and thus began Frederick Gutekunst's amateur career.
Photography studio
Frederick's brother, Louis Gutekunst, was a barber-hair dresser with a business at 4th and Vine[4] and had noticed the talent displayed by Frederick with a camera. When Frederick had mentioned to his brother that a storefront on Arch St. was for rent on Friday and would be a good place for a gallery, Louis secured the property at 706 Arch St. on Monday. F & L Gutekunst photographists opened for business in 1856,[5] and currently there is only one known daguerreotype by Gutekunst.[6] However, by 1859 Louis was again working as a hairdresser at 219 N. 4th Street.[7] The 1856 McElroy's also lists Frederick living at 1220 Ogden in Philadelphia.
Career
exterior, 712 Arch St. Philadelphia PA
exterior, linotype of studio
When the Civil War began, soldiers came to have their portraits made at the Gutekunst studio, and then officers came, and eventually the generals arrived. The growth of the business meant that it was time for a larger space, and in 1864 Gutekunst moved a few doors up Arch St. to number 712, and occupied the whole building. A full description is found in The Photographic Times & American Photographer, November 1885. One notable feature of the reception room was an "orchestrion" which used a large cylinder much like a music box to provide music for waiting patrons.
The portrait of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant seems to have been the work that stirred uniform national interest and set Gutekunst apart from his contemporaries. Here he tells the story of the how it was created.
Grant was stopping at the Continental Hotel at the time, and I sent someone over there to invite him to come to the studio for a sitting. In a short time he strolled in and said he would have come here himself, without an invitation as his brother officers wanted to come to me. When he arrived I was busy in the operating-room with a sitter, and while he waited his turn Grant sauntered around the reception-room, his right hand in his trousers-pocket, his left resting in his negligently worn vest. I kept him waiting as little as possible, and when I came out I found him in the attitude in which he is photographed. 'General', I said, 'that is a very nice position; just keep your hand that way.' Then I took him under the skylight, and he resumed that attitude which was so characteristic while I made the photograph. The picture has been considered the best taken of Grant; it has been used for the statue of him in Galena, and General Sherman sent me a letter in which he asserts his belief that it is the most characteristic of the great General.[8]
Railroads needed photographers to show what was to be seen from a train and what was nearby to induce people to travel. In the 1870s Gutekunst was a photographer for the Pennsylvania Railroad and a collection of stereo views were taken. The Library Company of Philadelphia has a set of these prints some of which can be viewed at LCPImages.org.[9]
The next great achievement for Gutekunst was the panorama of the 1876 Centennial Exposition held in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. The description of the work is as follows:
This ten feet long by eighteen inch wide picture was made from seven negatives by William Bell that were taken from a scaffold erected near the Belmont reservoir. The panoramic view printed on a single sheet of paper show all the buildings from Agricultural Hall to the Observatory on George's Hill. The large sheet of albumen paper for this panorama was supplied by the John H. Clemons factory on Sansom Street. The whites of one hundred and twenty five dozen eggs were required to coat the paper. To produce the print the entire sheet had to be exposed to sunlight, one section at a time, under each negative. Careful joining of the negatives was required to prevent a dark line from appearing at each juncture. Each section had to be printed to the same density despite the ever changing light from the sky. After printing out to a much darker shade than desired, the final appearance of the print was achieved through gold toning which had to be evenly applied or some of the blacks would have a bluish cast and others a reddish tone. Great difficulty was also encountered handling such a large sheet of wet paper as it passed through the fixing baths, toning and washing processes. The success with which he achieved a uniform color and tone can be seen today from a framed copy of the print hanging in the Library Company of Philadelphia.[10]
Louis Gutekunst was placed in charge of developing the print and described the process at a meeting of the Photographic Society of Philadelphia in January 1877.[10] The work was met with praise from all over the world. Frederick Gutekunst was recognized for the monumental work with the Cross of the Knights of the Austrian Order from Emperor Franz Joseph I of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Queen Victoria of Great Britain, and King Victor Emmanuel of Italy also sent similar honors, and the Emperor of Japan rewarded him with two gold-lined bronze vases.[10]
Gutekunst was as much artist as businessman and on a visit to Germany in 1878 he purchased the rights for the Phototype process. One year later upon visit to Philadelphia, J. H. Fitzgibbons, the editor of the St. Louis Practical Photographer, noted that Gutekunst was manufacturing thousands of prints every day. Eventually, this new factory needed to move out of Arch Street and up to 813 Girard Ave where a staff of forty under the supervision of the engraver, James P. Harbeson, kept up with demand for reproduction for publications, etc. Girard Ave was a perfect location for this endeavor since this part of Philadelphia was more industrial and less retail than Arch St.
Some of the products of this venture were illustrations for books such as the Biographical Album of Prominent Pennsylvanians, Artistic Houses, and Artistic Country Seats published by D. Appleton & Co. of New York. Also, Gutekunst began to use what we would now call a panoramic camera which took a photo of one hundred and eighty degrees and from which the studio could produce a print thirty-six inches in length.
In 1885, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society.[11]
On the morning of January 26, 1886, a fire started at 715-719 Arch St. which burned down the five-story building at that address. Additionally, the fire spread across the street to the Gutekunst establishment and caused approximately $10,000 in damage.[12] What impact this had on his business is difficult to estimate because Frederick Gutekunst did not seem to mention this fire in any later interviews.
Walt Whitman admired Gutekunst and after recovering from an illness Whitman went to have his portrait taken. Gutekunst took the last professional portrait of Whitman.[13]
By 1893 Gutekunst had been in business almost forty years and an additional studio was needed for the growing enterprise. The new studio was established in an upscale part of Philadelphia at 1700 N. Broad St. with William Braucher[14] as manager. With this Gutekunst also acquired a house nearby at 1842 N. Bouvier St.[15] The success early in his career meant that he could move his home out of Center City Philadelphia and own a home on Pulaski Avenue in Germantown in Philadelphia.[16] A year before his death Gutekunst incorporated his business and some of the older employees became stockholders, but Mr. Braucher resigned at that time.[17]
Frederick Gutekunst died April 27, 1917. Eight weeks earlier he fell down the steps of his N. Bouvier residence returning to his studio after lunch at home. This fall and Bright's disease seem to have caused his death.
Sources
Frederick Gutekunst: Dean of American Photographers exhibit at the University of the Sciences; Philadelphia 2006
Wilson's Photographic Magazine; Dec. 1913, vol. L, no. 712, page 537
Philadelphia: A History of the City & Its People by Ellis Paxon Oberholtzer, page 134
Philadelphia Photographers: 1840 – 1900 by William & Marie Brey
The Photographer; vol. 2, no. 31 Nov 26, 1904, page 69
The Studio of F. Gutekunst, Philadelphia. In: The Photographic Times and American Photographer, Vol. XIII., Scovill, New York 1883, page 572f.
Note: The sitters book (list of clients) of the Gutekunst Studio is in the collection of The Library Company of Philadelphia.
Gallery
Selected Photographs by Frederick Gutekunst
Lucretia Mott
Abraham Lincoln
Grover Cleveland
William Lloyd Garrison
Caroline Still Anderson
Harpers Ferry is a historic town in Jefferson County, West Virginia, United States, in the lower Shenandoah Valley. The population was 285 at the 2020 census. It is situated at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, where the U.S. states of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia meet. It is the easternmost town in West Virginia and during the Civil War was the northernmost point of Confederate-controlled territory. It has been called "the best strategic point in the whole South".[5]
The town was formerly spelled Harper's Ferry with an apostrophe—in the 18th century, it was the site of a ferry service owned and operated by Robert Harper.[6] The United States Board on Geographic Names, whose Domestic Name Committee is reluctant to include apostrophes in official place names,[7][8] established the standard spelling of "Harpers Ferry" by 1891.[9]
By far, the most important event in the town's history was John Brown's raid on the Harpers Ferry Armory in 1859.[10]
Prior to the Civil War, Harpers Ferry was a manufacturing town, as well as a transportation hub. (See Virginius Island and Harpers Ferry Armory.)
The main economic activity in the town in the 20th and 21st centuries is tourism.[11] John Brown's Fort is the most visited tourist site in the state of West Virginia. The headquarters of the Appalachian Trail are there—not the midpoint, but close to it, and easily accessible—and the buildings of the former Storer College are used by the National Park Service for one of its four national training centers. The National Park Service is in the 21st century Harpers Ferry's largest employer.
The lower town has been reconstructed by the National Park Service. It was in ruins at the end of the Civil War, not helped by river flooding.[12]: 15 "The fact that Harpers Ferry was first and foremost an industrial village during the 19th century is not apparent in the sights, sounds or smells of the town today."[12]: 10
History
18th century
In 1733, Peter Stephens, a squatter, had settled on land near "The Point" (the area where the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers meet), and established a ferry from Virginia (now West Virginia) to Maryland, across the Potomac.
Robert Harper
Gravesite of Robert Harper
Robert Harper, from whom the town takes its name, was born in 1718 in Oxford Township, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Since he was a builder, Harper was asked by a group of Quakers in 1747 to build a meeting house in the Shenandoah Valley, near the present site of Winchester, Virginia.[18] Traveling through Maryland on his way to the Shenandoah Valley, Harper, who was also a millwright, realized the potential of the latent waterpower from the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers, at an easily accessible location. He paid Stephens 30 guineas for his squatting rights to the ferry, since the land actually belonged to Lord Fairfax.[19]: 12
Harper purchased 126 acres (0.51 km2) of land from Lord Fairfax in 1751.[20] In 1761, the Virginia General Assembly granted him the right to establish and maintain a ferry across the Potomac River (even though a ferry had already been functioning since before Harper arrived). In 1763, the Virginia General Assembly established the town of "Shenandoah Falls at Mr. Harpers Ferry."[21]: 100 Harper died in October 1782 and is buried in the Harper Cemetery.[22]
Thomas Jefferson
View of Harpers Ferry from Jefferson Rock in 1854
The same view in 2021
On October 25, 1783, Thomas Jefferson visited Harpers Ferry. He viewed "the passage of the Potomac through the Blue Ridge" from a rock that is now named for him. This stop took place as Jefferson was traveling to Philadelphia and passed through Harpers Ferry with his daughter Patsy. Jefferson called the site "perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in nature,"[23]: 22 and stated that, "This scene is worth a voyage across the Atlantic."[24] It was one of his favorite retreats, and tradition says that much of his Notes on the State of Virginia was written there.[25]
George Washington
George Washington, as president of the Patowmack Company (which was formed to complete river improvements on the Potomac and its tributaries), traveled to Harpers Ferry during the summer of 1785 to determine the need for bypass canals. In 1794, Washington's familiarity with the area led him to propose the site for a new United States armory and arsenal. Some of Washington's family moved to the area; his great-great-nephew, Colonel Lewis Washington, was held hostage during John Brown's raid in 1859, and George's brother Charles Washington founded the nearby Jefferson County town of Charles Town.[26]: 13
19th century
The federal armory
Main article: Harpers Ferry Armory
In 1796, the federal government purchased a 125-acre (0.5 km2) parcel of land from the heirs of Robert Harper. Construction began on what would become the United States Armory and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry in 1799.[27] This was one of only two such facilities in the U.S., the other being in Springfield, Massachusetts. Together they produced most of the small arms for the U.S. Army. The town was transformed into a water-powered industrial center; between 1801 and 1861, when it was destroyed to prevent capture during the Civil War, the armory produced more than 600,000 muskets, rifles, and pistols. Inventor Captain John H. Hall pioneered the use of interchangeable parts in firearms manufactured at his rifle works at the armory between 1820 and 1840; his M1819 Hall rifle was the first breech-loading weapon adopted by the U.S. Army.[28]: 151 [full citation needed]
Canals built
The Potomac Canal at Harper's Ferry. Note it is seen in two places.
Harpers Ferry's first man-made transportation facility, that is, other than the rivers themselves, was the Potomac Canal. An identifiable section of it can be seen in the picture of Island Park, below. As a transportation medium the Canal ceased operation in 1828, but a portion of the canal in front of Harpers Ferry channeled river water to run Armory machinery.
The Potomac Canal ran, at Harpers Ferry, on the Virginia side of the river. On the Maryland side, the later Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad competed for right-of-way on a very narrow patch of land downstream from Harpers Ferry.
Arrival of the railroads
Industrialization continued in 1833 when the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal (which never reached the Ohio River) reached Harpers Ferry, linking it with Washington, D.C. A year later, after a protracted dispute with the Canal company the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad began service from Harpers Ferry via a small bridge, the Wager Bridge; the same family later built the Wager Hotel across from Harpers Ferry's B&O train station. The bridge connected the town across the Potomac with Sandy Hook, Maryland, which for a few years in the 1830s was the western terminus of the railroad. The railroad crossed the Potomac into Harpers Ferry with the opening of the B & O Railroad Potomac River Crossing in 1837.[29] The first railroad junction in the country began service in 1836 when the Winchester and Potomac Railroad opened its line from Harpers Ferry southwest to Charles Town and then to Winchester, Virginia.
Virginius Island
Main article: Virginius Island, West Virginia
Taking advantage of the good routes to markets and the available water power on the Shenandoah, mills and other water-powered industry were built on Virginius Island. Except for the Arsenal, Virginius Island housed Harpers Ferry's manufacturing. It also provided working-class housing at a boarding house and in row houses. No structure survives on Virginius Island, as 20th-century floods have destroyed everything. The Arsenal of course used the Potomac for power, but also built a rifle plant some distance upstream using the Shenandoah's power.
John Brown's raid
Main article: John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry
Harper's Ferry in 1859
Preserved John Brown's Fort (the engine house) in 2007
On October 16, 1859, the abolitionist John Brown led a group of 22 men (counting himself) in a raid on the arsenal. Five of the men were black: three free black men, one freed slave, and one fugitive slave. Brown attacked and captured several buildings, hoping to secure the weapons depot and arm the slaves, starting a revolt across the South. Brown also brought 1,000 steel pikes, which were forged in Connecticut by a blacksmith and abolitionist sympathizer, Charles Blair; however, the pikes, a weapon that does not require training, were never used as Brown failed to rally the slaves to revolt.[30] The first shot of the raid mortally wounded Heyward Shepherd,[31] a free black man who was a baggage porter for the B&O Railroad.
The noise from that shot alerted Dr. John Starry shortly after 1:00 am. He walked from his nearby home to investigate the shooting and was confronted by Brown's men. Starry stated that he was a doctor but could do nothing more for Shepherd, and Brown's men allowed him to leave. Starry went to the livery and rode to neighboring towns and villages, alerting residents to the raid. John Brown's men were quickly pinned down by local citizens and militia, and forced to take refuge in the fire engine house (later called John Brown's Fort), at the entrance to the armory.[32]
The Secretary of War asked the Navy Department for a unit of United States Marines from the Washington Navy Yard, the nearest troops.[33] Lieutenant Israel Greene was ordered to take a force of 86 Marines to the town. U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee was found on leave at his home in nearby Arlington, and he was assigned as commander, along with Lt. J. E. B. Stuart as his aide-de-camp. Lee led the unit in civilian clothes, as none of his uniforms were available. The contingent arrived by train on October 18, and after negotiations failed, they stormed the fire house and captured most of the raiders, killing a few and suffering a single casualty. Lee submitted a report on October 19.[34]
Brown was quickly tried in Charles Town, county seat of Jefferson County, for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, murder, and fomenting a slave insurrection. Convicted of all charges, he was hanged December 2, 1859. (See Virginia v. John Brown.) Starry's testimony was integral to his conviction. John Brown's words, both from his interview by Virginia Governor Henry A. Wise and his famous "last speech", "captured the attention of the nation like no other abolitionist or slave owner before or since."[35]: 174
Civil War
Stereoscopic picture of contraband camp at Harpers Ferry, about 1861. Note John Brown's Fort in background.
July 20, 1861 Harper's Weekly news illustration: camel back locomotive and tender wrecked by the rebels in Harpers Ferry
Harpers Ferry in 1865, looking east (downstream); the ruins of the musket factory can be seen in the center
The town was "easy to seize, and hard to hold".[36]: 284 The Civil War was disastrous for Harpers Ferry, which changed hands eight times between 1861 and 1865.[37] It was described thus in March 1862:
Harper's Ferry presents quite a gloomy picture. The best buildings have been shelled to the ground, and nothing now remains but their foundations to mark the spot where they once stood. The old Arsenal has been burnt to the ground; that part of the building where old John Brown made such a fatal stand, still stands as a monument to his memory. Before the destruction of the town, it contained near 3000 inhabitants, but at the present time there are not more than 300 or 400 families there.[38]
John G. Rosengarten described it in similar terms, saying that the town and Bolivar Heights, in 1859 "a blooming garden-spot, full of thrift and industry and comfort", in 1862 had been reduced to "waste and desolation".[39]
Because of the town's strategic location on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and at the northern end of the Shenandoah Valley, both Union and Confederate troops moved through Harpers Ferry frequently. "Jefferson County is where the North and South met."[40] The town's garrison of 14,000 Federal troops attracted 1,500 contrabands (escaped slaves) by the summer of 1862.[41] They were returned to slavery when Confederate forces took Harpers Ferry in 1862.
Harpers Ferry played a key role in the Confederate invasion of Maryland in September 1862. Gen. Robert E. Lee did not want to continue on to Maryland without capturing the town. It was on his supply line and could control one of his possible routes of retreat if the invasion did not go well.[42]
Harpers Ferry and bridge from Maryland Heights, 1872
Maryland Heights, Harpers Ferry, 1873
Dividing his army of approximately 40,000 into four sections, Lee used the cover of the mountains to send three columns under Stonewall Jackson to surround and capture the town.[43] The Battle of Harpers Ferry started with light fighting September 13 as the Confederates tried to capture the Maryland Heights to the northeast, while John Walker moved back over the Potomac to capture Loudoun Heights south of town. After a Confederate artillery bombardment on September 14 and 15, the Federal garrison surrendered. With 12,419 Federal troops captured by Jackson, the surrender at Harpers Ferry was the largest surrender of U.S. military personnel until the Battle of Bataan in World War II.[42]
Because of the delay in capturing Harpers Ferry and the movement of Federal forces to the west, Lee was forced to regroup at the town of Sharpsburg. Two days later he commanded troops in the Battle of Antietam, which had the highest number of deaths among troops of any single day in United States military history. By July 1864, the Union again had control of Harpers Ferry. On 4 July 1864, the Union commanding Gen. Franz Sigel withdrew his troops to Maryland Heights. From there he resisted Jubal Anderson Early's attempt to enter the town and drive the Federal garrison from Maryland Heights.[44]
In 1862, the paymaster`s quarters (Lockwood House) and superintendent`s clerk`s quarters (Brackett House) were used as hospitals.[45]: 23 Lockwood House did not have that name intil later; in 1863 Union general Henry Hayes Lockwood briefly made the paymaster's quarters his home.[45]: 24
After the Civil War
Inspired by John Brown, both runaway and freed slaves came to Harpers Ferry during and after the Civil War. This created social tensions between white and black residents of the community and generated a growing need for services for the increasing African-American population. Accordingly, a freedman’s school was opened on Camp Hill by Freewill Baptist missionaries following the Civil War.[45]: 4
Storer College
Main article: Storer College
Soldiers' Gate, Storer College
The town and the Armory, except John Brown's Fort, were destroyed during the Civil War. "The larger portion of the houses all lie in ruins and the whole place is not actually worth $10", wrote a Massachusetts soldier to his mother in 1863.[36]: 285 A visitor in 1878 found the town "antiquated, dingy, and rather squalid";[46] another, in 1879, described it as "shabby and ruined".[36]: 286 The Arsenal had been Harpers Ferry's largest employer; since it was never rebuilt, the population never recovered to pre-Civil War levels.
Storer College, devoted to training teachers for freedmen, opened in 1868, much to the displeasire of many residents of Harpers Ferry, who did not want a "nigger college" and petitioned the Legislature to revoke its charter. The War Department gave to the Freedmen's Bureau its remaining assets in Harpers Ferry, principally four sturdy residences for the managers of the Armory, structurally sound but in need of repairs from Civil War damage, and the Bureau gave them to Storer College. A one-man school for Blacks was already operating in one of them.
African-American tourism
1903 advertisement for the Dime Museum, showing that Harpers Ferry, easy to reach by rail, was already receiving tourists.
In 1859 Harpers Ferry became a town of great historical importance to African-Americans, where the end of slavery began, as Frederick Douglass put it. With good rail connections to major eastern cities, it became a destination as soon as railroad operations returned to normal after the War. As put in a newspaper in 1873: "One need only to alight from the train and look a little envious toward the old Engine House or the ruined walls of the old Arsenal in order to have a score of persons offering to become a kind of guide or to point out to your whatever you may desire to know about the great struggle which ended in the 'opening of the prison doors, the breaking of every yoke, the undoing of heavy burdens, and letting the oppressed go free.[']"[47]
Storer, the only black college located at a location historically important to African-Americans, became a civil rights center and made the town even more of a destination for black tourists and excursionists. Frederick Douglass spoke in 1881, as part of an unsuccessful campaign to fund a "John Brown professorship", to be held by an African American. The Niagara Movement, predecessor of NAACP, whose first meeting was in Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada, held its first meeting in the United States at Storer, in 1906.
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad wanted the land where the Fort was located, so as to make the line less vulnerable to flooding, and some white townspeople were eager to get rid of it;[48]: 181 [49]: 19 it was dismantled and moved to Chicago for display at the 1893 Columbian Exposition. Abandoned there, it was rescued and moved back to Harpers Ferry. The Baltimore and Ohio moved it back for free, motivated by their expectation that having it back in Harpers Ferry, it would be a tourist attraction and a way to build ridership on the railroad.[48]: 183 Most whites were opposed to any commemoration of John Brown.[48]: 182 For lack of a better location (the town was not much interested) it was placed on a nearby farm.
Around Picturesque Harper's Ferry, 1904—a book for tourists.
Now Harpers Ferry, easily accessible by rail, began its conversion to its new industry, tourism. Many African-Americans visited Harpers Ferry; there was a black-owned hotel to accommodate them, the Hilltop House, and in the summer Storer rented rooms to black vacationers, until 1896.[50]: 183 The Fort was the great monument where the end of slavery began. There were so many tourists that they were a nuisance to the farmer on whose lands the Fort sat. It was moved from the farm to Storer in 1909, and there it remained until several years after the College closed in 1955. It functioned as the College Museum. Male students practiced their public speaking by giving tours of it.
Visits by tourists, then, many of them black, slowly turned the town into a tourist center. As early as 1878 the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was running excursion trains to Harpers Ferry from Baltimore and Washington.[51][52] Tourism was cited as a reason for the town's recovering population growth. "Harpers Ferry proved to be one of the most visited places of leisure for nineteenth-century African Americans.[53]: 41–42
Island Park Resort and Amusement Park
Footbridge over the Potomac Canal and part of the Potomac River to Island Park, a recreation area built by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad on Byrne Island, Harpers Ferry, WV
In 1879, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, to increase ridership, built a park they called Island Park Resort and Amusement Park, on Byrne Island, in the Potomac, which the railroad bought. The railroad built a footbridge to the island. One had to pay 5¢ ($5 in 2021 value) to cross, an entrance charge, after which rides and other activities were free. It was a site for outings and church picnics, suitable also for holding political rallies; it was also used by Railroad as a perk for its employees. (See also Relay, Maryland.) A list of events held there would be long, but as examples, in 1880 there was a reunion of 4,000 Odd Fellows, and there were six special trains to Harpers Ferry from various points;[54] on October 19, 1892, there was a "Grand Tri-State Democratic Mass Meeting".[55]
The Park was large enough that parades could be held. There were a steam-powered Ferris wheel and carousel, a pavilion for dancing or roller skating, swings, a merry-go-round, and a bandstand. All were free, except for the bridge toll.[56] There was a midway. Visitors could also play croquet, tennis, rent boats, fish, or wade in the river. Later there were baseball games. It operated until 1909,[57] Blacks and whites attended on different days.[53]: 73 In 1883, there were an estimated 100,000 visitors.[53]: 50 The bandstand, the only surviving structure, has been moved twice. In 1909 it was moved first to the Arsenal Square (current location of John Brown's Fort), then later to the park at Washington and Gilmore Streets, where it is now The Bandstand or the Town Gazebo.[58]
The bridge was destroyed by flooding first in 1896,[59] and a rebuilt bridge in 1924. Remaining structures on the island were destroyed by flooding in 1942.[58]
20th century
Steam heat, electric light, and fishing guides and bait at short notice. 1903.
2nd Niagara Movement Conference
On August 15, 1906, author and scholar W. E. B. Du Bois led the first meeting on American soil of the newly-founded Niagara Movement. The conference was held at the campus of Storer College, an integrated, primarily Black college that operated until 1955. (After it closed, the campus became part of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.) The three-day gathering, which was held to work for civil rights for African Americans, was later described by DuBois as "one of the greatest meetings that American Negroes ever held." Attendees of the 1906 meeting walked from Storer College to the farm of the Murphy family, location at the time of John Brown's historic "fort", the arsenal's firehouse. As a direct result, the Fort was soon moved to the Storer campus, where it was the College's central icon. After the College closed in 1955, the National Park Service moved it back to as close as possible to its original location.[60]
Harpers Ferry National Monument and National Historical Park
National Park Service map of Harper Ferry showing the Appalachian Trail, with (1) being the scene of John Brown's raid[61]
Main article: Harpers Ferry National Historical Park
The combined effects of Civil War damage and flooding left lower Harpers Ferry in poor condition. The devastating effects of the 1936 flood left the lower town "shabby and almost uninhabited", with no bridge across the Shenandoah to Virginia and no highway bridge to Maryland. All remaining structures on Virginius Island were destroyed.[62]
The backbone of the effort to preserve and commemorate Harpers Ferry was Henry T. MacDonald, President of Storer, an amateur historian; West Virginia Governor Okey Patteson appointed him head of the Harpers Ferry National Monument Commission.[49]: 45 He was assisted by the Representative from West Virginia's Second District, Jennings Randolph. In 1935 Randolph introduced a bill to establish Harpers Ferry National Military Park in "the area where the most important events of [John Brown's raid] took place.[49]: 35–36 This bill did not pass, but the flood of 1936 made the project more feasible by destroying buildings not historically important, freeing land. After several other attempts, a bill creating Harpers Ferry National Monument was passed and signed by President Roosevelt in 1944, subject to the proviso that nothing would be done until the war ended.[49]: 39
An urgent priority was the new highway which is today U.S. Route 340. A new bridge connecting Sandy Hook, Maryland with Loudoun County, Virginia opened in October 1947; work had begun in 1941, but was interrupted by the war.[63] Another new bridge over the Shenandoah connecting Virginia to Bolivar, West Virginia, opened two years later; now federal highway traffic bypassed Harpers Ferry entirely.[64]
Recreation of a 19th-century gun-making shop
Land acquisition started in lower Harpers Ferry; the project was supported both by Harpers Ferry mayor Gilbert Perry and Governor Patteson. Twenty-two eviction notices were served in the lower town, and two taverns closed.[49]: 57 Property acquisition, not all of which was unproblematic, was completed in 1952 and was presented to the United States in January 1953.[49]: 46 The National Monument's first on-site employee, John T. Willett, began in 1954.
Aerial view, looking east in October 1974.
View from Maryland Heights
In 1957 the Baltimore Sun said that the lower town was "a sagging and rotted ghost town". The idea of making Harpers Ferry into a National Monument was to prevent the further deterioration and to rebuild the tourist industry.[65][66] The first task of the Park Service was to stabilize the buildings on Shenandoah Street, the main commercial street of lower Harpers Ferry. Roofs were covered, missing windows replaced, walls on the verge of collapse reinforced, debris removed. Post-1859 buildings were not restored, and most were removed.[67] The NPS built a Visitor's Center and a John Brown Museum.[68] Harpers Ferry National Monument became Harpers Ferry National Historical Park on May 29, 1963.[69]
"Recreationists" who wanted a park and did not care about the history were a problem. Local residents did not want to lose recreational opportunities, but swiming and fishing on the Shenandoah shore, formerly common, were prohibited. In order to keep recreationists out of the historic area, and especially Virginius Island, lower town parking was removed and a shuttle bus service begun.: 62 Tensions between the NPS and town residents were ongoing.
The NPS helped the town achieve Main Street Status from the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 2001.[49]: 64
The population of Harpers Ferry continued to decline in the 20th century. The majority of the surviving homes in Harpers Ferry are historic. Some are registered in the National Register of Historic Places.