Background:
Harpers Ferry is a historic town in Jefferson County, West Virginia, United States. It was formerly spelled Harpers Ferry with an apostrophe and that form continues to appear in some references. 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. The towns original, lower section is on a flood plain created by the two rivers and surrounded by higher ground. Historically, Harpers Ferry is best known for John Browns raid on the Armory in 1859 and its role in the American Civil War.
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. Fourteen years later (1747), while traveling from Maryland to Virginia, Robert Harper passed through the area which was named The Hole (the gap in the mountains along the Potomac River). Harper recognized the potential for industry, given the power the two rivers could generate, and the traffic he could ferry across the Potomac River. Harper paid Stephens 30 British guinea for what was essentially Stephens squatting rights, since the land actually belonged to Lord Fairfax.
In April 1751, Harper purchased 126 acres of land from Lord Fairfax. In 1761, the Virginia General Assembly granted Harper the right to establish and maintain a ferry across the Potomac River (even though a ferry had been functioning successfully in the area before and after Harper first settled there). In 1763, the Virginia General Assembly established the town of Shenandoah Falls at Mr. Harpers Ferry.
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.
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, Washingtons familiarity with the area led him to propose the site for a new United States armory and arsenal. Some of Washingtons family moved to the area; his great-great-nephew, Colonel Lewis Washington, was held hostage during John Browns raid in 1859, and Georges brother Charles Washington founded the nearby Jefferson County town of Charles Town.
In 1796, the federal government purchased a 125-acre (0.5 km2) parcel of land from the heirs of Robert Harper. Construction began on the United States Armory and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry in 1799. This was one of only two such facilities in the U.S., the other being Springfield, Massachusetts. Together they produced most of the small arms for the U.S. Army. The town was transformed into an 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.
Industrialization continued in 1833 when the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal reached Harpers Ferry, linking it with Washington, D.C. A year later, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad began service through the town.

Fenn, Harry 1837 - 1911
Harry Fenn (1837 – April 22, 1911) was an English-born American illustrator, landscape painter, etcher, and wood engraver. From 1870 to around 1895 he was the most prominent landscape illustrator in the United States. He is also noted for his illustrations of Egypt, Palestine and the Sinai.
Fenn was born at Richmond, near London, England in 1837. Fenn started as a wood engraver, serving and apprenticeship with the firm, Dalziel of London. He soon turned to drawing for illustration and watercolor painting. In 1857 he made a trip to the U.S. to see the Niagara Falls and settled in New York where he worked first as a wood engraver. In 1862 he married Marian Thompson of Brooklyn. After an extended wedding trip to England and Italy, where Fenn studied painting, his focused on illustration in New York.
He settled in Montclair, New Jersey, around 1865. His first highly successful commission was to illustrate Whittiers Snow-Bound published by Bostons Ticknor and Fields in 1867 for the Christmas trade (dated 1868). Its tiny images apparently opened the eyes of many to the artistic possibilities of wood engravings, and it is often referred to as the first gift book published in America, although it had predecessors. Fenn is best known for the engravings he contributed with his friend Douglas Woodward to three massive books filled with wood and steel engravings that were published by New Yorks D. Appleton and Co.: Picturesque America (1872–74) edited by William Cullen Bryant, which started as a serial in Appletons Journal in 1870; Picturesque Europe (1875–79), and Picturesque Palestine, Sinai and Egypt (1881–84). Other artists contributed to each of these books, but Fenn was the most prolific contributor, and his innovative page designs combining image and text popularized this approach. Fenn and his family lived in England from 1873 to 1881 while Fenn worked on Picturesque Europe and Picturesque Palestine.
After returning to the U.S. in 1881, Fenn was a sought-after illustrator for the leading illustrator periodicals, Century Magazine, Harpers Monthly, Harpers Weekly, and Scribners. He was commissioned to illustrate landscape throughout the world and the U.S. as well as to produce depictions of architecture and plant life. As the technologies for printing illustrations changed, Fenn adapted, producing ink drawings for reproduction as process line cuts and later watercolors for reproduction as halftones. He also contributed to numerous books of poetry. An edition of Grays Elegy in a Country Churchyard published by Roberts Brothers in 1884 was stamped Harry Fenn Edition on the front cover. He was also the sole illustrator of an edition of Tennysons In Memoriam, published by Fords, Howard and Hulbert in 1897, in a very different style from his earlier designs for poetry.
Throughout his career Fenn prepared watercolors for exhibition and sale. He was among the founding members of the American Watercolor Society, attending the second meeting in 1867, and he regularly participated in their exhibitions. He was a member of the New York Watercolor Club, the Society of Illustrators, and the Salmagundi Club. He exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1864 and at the Brooklyn Art Association between 1864 and 1885. He exhibited at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876 and at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, where he was awarded a medal. Fenn died on April 22, 1911, at his home in Montclair, where he had lived since 1881.
Fenns works reached a wide audience and popularized publications with illustrations, expanding the field for other artists. As Sue Rainey wrote in her book Creating a World on Paper: Harry Fenns Career in Art: Fenns dynamic and appealing compositions set a high standard. They built pride in Americas scenic landscapes and urban centers, informed a curious, increasingly cosmopolitan public about foreign lands, and fostered an appreciation of printed pictures as artworks accessible to a growing middle class.