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Storer College

1865 establishments in West Virginia1955 disestablishments in West VirginiaAfrican-American historic placesAfrican-American history of West VirginiaBuildings and structures in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia
Defunct universities and colleges in West VirginiaEducational institutions disestablished in 1955Educational institutions established in 1865Free Will Baptist schoolsFreedmen's BureauHarpers Ferry, West VirginiaHistoric American Buildings Survey in West VirginiaHistoric district contributing properties in West VirginiaHistorically black universities and colleges in the United StatesHistorically segregated African-American schools in West VirginiaNational Park ServiceNational Register of Historic Places in Jefferson County, West VirginiaProtected areas of Jefferson County, West VirginiaSchools supported by the Freedmen's BureauStorer CollegeTourist attractions in Jefferson County, West VirginiaUniversity and college buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in West VirginiaUse American English from April 2022Use mdy dates from April 2022Vague or ambiguous time from May 2021
Storer college postcard
Storer college postcard

Storer College was a historically black college in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, that operated from 1867 to 1955. A national icon for Black Americans, in the town where the 'end of American slavery began', as Frederick Douglass famously put it, it was a unique institution whose focus changed several times. There is no one category of college into which it fits neatly. Sometimes white students studied alongside Black students, which at the time was prohibited by law at state-supported schools in West Virginia and the other Southern states, and sometimes in the North. In the twentieth century, Storer was at the center of the growing protest movement against Jim Crow treatment that would lead to the NAACP and the Civil Rights Movement. The first American meeting of the predecessor of the NAACP, the Niagara Movement, was held at Storer in 1906. John Brown's Fort, a symbol of the end of slavery in the United States, was located from 1909 until 1968 on the Storer campus, where it was used as the college museum. The Storer campus is now part of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.

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Storer College
Fillmore Street,

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N 39.323788888889 ° E -77.735413888889 °
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Fillmore Street 313
25425
West Virginia, United States
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Harpers Ferry, West Virginia
Harpers Ferry, West Virginia

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. 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. During the American Civil War, it was the northernmost point of Confederate-controlled territory. An 1890 history book on the town called it "the best strategic point in the whole South."The town was formerly spelled Harper's Ferry with an apostrophe, so named because in the 18th century it was the site of a ferry service owned and operated by Robert Harper. The United States Board on Geographic Names, whose Domestic Name Committee is reluctant to include apostrophes in official place names, established the standard spelling of "Harpers Ferry" by 1891.By far, the most important event in the town's history was John Brown's raid on the Harpers Ferry Armory in 1859.Prior to the American Civil War, Harpers Ferry was a manufacturing town as well as a major transportation hub. The main economic activity in the town in the 20th and 21st centuries is tourism. 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 Harpers Ferry's largest employer in the 21st century.The lower town has been reconstructed by the National Park Service. It was in ruins by the end of the American Civil War, not helped by later river flooding.: 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.": 10 

John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry

John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was an effort by abolitionist John Brown, from October 16 to 18, 1859, to initiate a slave revolt in Southern states by taking over the United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (since 1863, West Virginia). It has been called the dress rehearsal for, or tragic prelude to, the Civil War.: 5 Brown's party of 22 was defeated by a company of U.S. Marines, led by First Lieutenant Israel Greene. Ten of the raiders were killed during the raid, seven were tried and executed afterwards, and five escaped. Several of those present at the raid would later be involved in the Civil War: Colonel Robert E. Lee was in overall command of the operation to retake the arsenal. Stonewall Jackson and Jeb Stuart were among the troops guarding the arrested Brown, and John Wilkes Booth was a spectator at Brown's execution. John Brown had originally asked Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, both of whom he had met in his transformative years as an abolitionist in Springfield, Massachusetts, to join him in his raid, but Tubman was prevented by illness and Douglass declined, as he believed Brown's plan was suicidal.The raid was extensively covered in the press nationwide—it was the first such national crisis to be publicized using the new electrical telegraph. Reporters were on the first train leaving for Harpers Ferry after news of the raid was received, at 4 p.m. on Monday, October 17. It carried Maryland militia, and parked on the Maryland side of the Harpers Ferry bridge, just 3 miles (4.8 km) east of the town (at the hamlet of Sandy Hook, Maryland). As there were few official messages to send or receive, the telegraph carried on the next train, connected to the cut telegraph wires, was "given up to reporters", who "are in force strong as military".: 17  By Tuesday morning the telegraph line had been repaired,: 21  and there were reporters from The New York Times "and other distant papers".: 23 The label "raid" was not used at the time. A month after the attack, a Baltimore newspaper listed 26 terms used, including "insurrection", "rebellion", "treason", and "crusade". "Raid" was not among them.: 4 Brown's raid caused much excitement and anxiety throughout the United States, with the South seeing it as a threat to slavery and their way of life, and some in the North perceiving it as a bold abolitionist action. At first it was generally viewed as madness, the work of a fanatic. It was Brown's words and letters after the raid and at his trial – Virginia v. John Brown – aided by the writings of supporters, including Henry David Thoreau, that turned him into a hero and icon for the Union.

Battle of Harpers Ferry
Battle of Harpers Ferry

The Battle of Harpers Ferry was fought September 12–15, 1862, as part of the Maryland Campaign of the American Civil War. As Confederate Army General Robert E. Lee's Confederate army invaded Maryland, a portion of his army under Major General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson surrounded, bombarded, and captured the Union garrison at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). As Lee's Army of Northern Virginia advanced down the Shenandoah Valley into Maryland, he planned to capture the garrison at Harpers Ferry to secure his line of supply back to Virginia. Although he was being pursued at a leisurely pace by Major General George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac, outnumbering him more than two to one, Lee chose the risky strategy of dividing his army and sent one portion to converge and attack Harpers Ferry from three directions. Colonel Dixon S. Miles, Union commander at Harpers Ferry, insisted on keeping most of the troops near the town instead of taking up commanding positions on the surrounding heights. The slim defenses of the most important position, Maryland Heights, first encountered the approaching Confederates on September 12, but only brief skirmishing ensued. Strong attacks by two Confederate brigades on September 13 drove the Union troops from the heights. During the fighting on Maryland Heights, the other Confederate columns arrived and were astonished to see that critical positions to the west and south of town were not defended. Jackson methodically positioned his artillery around Harpers Ferry and ordered Maj. Gen. A.P. Hill to move down the west bank of the Shenandoah River in preparation for a flank attack on the Federal left the next morning. By the morning of September 15, Jackson had positioned nearly 50 guns on Maryland Heights and at the base of Loudoun Heights. He began a fierce artillery barrage from all sides and ordered an infantry assault. Miles realized that the situation was hopeless and agreed with his subordinates to raise the white flag of surrender. Before he could surrender personally, he was mortally wounded by an artillery shell and died the next day. After processing more than 12,000 Union prisoners, Jackson's men then rushed to Sharpsburg, Maryland, to rejoin Lee for the Battle of Antietam.

Harpers Ferry National Historical Park
Harpers Ferry National Historical Park

Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, originally Harpers Ferry National Monument, is located at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers in and around Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. The park includes the historic center of Harpers Ferry, notable as a key 19th-century industrial area and as the scene of John Brown's failed abolitionist uprising. It contains the most visited historic site in the state of West Virginia, John Brown's Fort.The park includes land in the Shenandoah Valley in Jefferson County, West Virginia; Washington County, Maryland and Loudoun County, Virginia. The park is managed by the National Park Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior. Originally designated Harpers Ferry National Monument in 1944, the park was declared a National Historical Park by the U.S. Congress in 1963. Consisting of almost 4,000 acres (16 km2), it includes the site of which Thomas Jefferson once wrote, "The passage of the Potomac through the Blue Ridge is perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in Nature" after visiting the area in 1783. Due to a mixture of historical events and ample recreational opportunities, all within 50 miles (80 km) of Washington, D.C., the park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966. In 2017, the Park's Superintendent was Tyrone Brandyburg.The park was originally planned as a memorial to John Brown, responsible for what is by far the most famous incident in Harpers Ferry's history, his 1859 raid and capture of the federal armory. NPS officials in the 1930s focused on John Brown's raid and the Civil War to justify acquiring parts of Harpers Ferry for a historical and military park. Like the figure of John Brown himself, this proved enormously controversial, with opposition from white supremacist organizations such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans.: 86 

Harpers Ferry Historic District
Harpers Ferry Historic District

The Harpers Ferry Historic District comprises about one hundred historic structures in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. The historic district includes the portions of the central town not included in Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, including large numbers of early 19th-century houses built by the United States Government for the workers at the Harpers Ferry Armory. Significant buildings and sites include the site of the Armory, the U.S Armory Potomac Canal, the Harpers Ferry Train Station, and Shenandoah Street, Potomac Street, and High or Washington Street. The National Historic Park essentially comprises the lower, flood-prone areas of the town, while the Historic District comprises the upper town. In the late 19th century a number of Victorian and Federalist-style houses were built on the high ground and received guests who included Mark Twain, Alexander Graham Bell and Woodrow Wilson. "Stonewall" Jackson also made the town his base of command during part of the Civil War and Thomas Jefferson said of the ferry area that: "The passage of the Patowmac through the Blue Ridge is perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in Nature." The historic district preserves what is essentially an intact 19th-century town that occupied a pivotal role in the American Civil War, and later as a transportation center. Thousands of tourists visit the town every year, however, parking in town is scarce. In order to better manage traffic in the small streets and enhance the feel of this historic town visitors are asked to park at the nearby Visitors Center and take the Park Service bus into the town itself. Taking the bus gives visitors a view of the traditional infrastructure that made Harpers Ferry so important prior to the 20th century. A commuter train line stops at Harpers Ferry's historic train station and links the town with Washington D.C., with many intermediate stops.The town was severely damaged during the Civil War, and the Armory, the only large employer, was destroyed; the only surviving building is the fire engine house, called John Brown's Fort, which is not at its original location (it traveled to Chicago and back). In addition, there was repetitive flooding in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. in the inadvertent preservation of much of the original town fabric. Two National Register properties adjoin the Harpers Ferry Historic District—the B & O Railroad Potomac River Crossing and St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church.