Bolivar Heights Battlefield

The Battle of Bolivar Heights (October 16, 1861) was an early battle of the American Civil War. Bolivar Heights is a plateau which overlooks the towns of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia and Bolivar, West Virginia, then part of Virginia.

Bolivar ( BOH-liv-er) is a town in Jefferson County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 1,072 at the 2020 census. The town is named for South American revolutionary leader Simón Bolívar. Located in West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle, it is part of the northwestern fringes of the Washington metropolitan area. The Appalachian Trail passes directly through nearby Harpers Ferry, which some consider the psychological midpoint of the trail, although the physical midpoint is further north, in Pennsylvania. Uniquely, the towns of Harpers Ferry and Bolivar partnered with the ATC to be declared a united Appalachian Trail Community.

The Strider Farm was intimately involved in events concerning the American Civil War near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Located on a small hill just south of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad line from Baltimore and Washington, D.C. to Martinsburg, West Virginia, the Strider farm was a strategic location for the control of this vital link. The main house, built circa 1790 is a 2+1⁄2-story Federal style in stone masonry. It was enlarged in 1880 with a shallow addition, also in stone. A barn also dates to 1880. The main house was built by Philip Strider, whose descendants appear frequently in the later history of Jefferson County. During the Civil War, the property was the scene of frequent fighting. On September 13–17, 1862, Confederate artillery fired on Federal troops from a position near the front yard of the house. Later, in 1864, the house was the headquarters of Federal Major General Horatio G. Wright.

The Lee-Longsworth House in Bolivar, West Virginia, is an example of the transition from Georgian style architecture to the Federal style. It preserves significant features of interior woodwork, and is associated with the Lee family of Virginia. The property was in 1799 leased by its then owner, Thomas Wilson, to the US Government. At some point after that time, the property was purchased by Richard B. Lee, his wife Elizabeth, Edmond I. Lee and Walton Jones to Ferdinando Fairfax for $3000, subject to the government lease. Throughout the nineteenth century the house changed hands frequently and was entangled in a number of court proceedings. During the American Civil War it is alleged that Stonewall Jackson occupied the house for a brief time,

The Allstadt House and Ordinary was built about 1790 on land owned by the Lee family near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, including Phillip Ludwell Lee, Richard Bland Lee and Henry Lee III. The house at the crossroads was sold to the Jacob Allstadt family of Berks County, Pennsylvania in 1811. Allstadt operated an ordinary (a tavern) in the house, and a tollgate on the Harpers Ferry-Charles Town Turnpike, while he resided farther down the road in a stone house. The house was enlarged by the Allstadts c. 1830. The house remained in the family until the death of John Thomas Allstadt in 1923, the last survivor of John Brown's Raid.The property was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.It was purchased by the American Battlefield Trust, which in 2019 donated it to the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.

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.

Camp Hill is a summit in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, in the United States. With an elevation of 538 feet (164 m), Camp Hill is the 952nd highest summit in the state of West Virginia.Camp Hill was so named from the fact army men camped there in 1799.

Virginius Island is a formerly inhabited island of some 12 acres (4.9 ha), on the Shenandoah River in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. The island was created by the Shenandoah Canal, constructed by the Patowmack Company between 1806 and 1807, which separates it from the town of Harpers Ferry. The canal was constructed to enable boats to bypass rapids on the river, and also channel water to drive machinery. In the nineteenth century Virginius Island contained Harpers Ferry's industry (aside from the Arsenal) and working-class housing: a boarding house and row houses. Virginius Island is part of the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.

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.

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 

Jefferson Rock is a rock formation on the Appalachian Trail in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. It consists of several large masses of Harpers shale, piled one upon the other, that overlook the Shenandoah River just prior to its confluence with the Potomac River. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places as a contributing property of the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park on October 15, 1966.

Harpers Ferry station is a historic railway station in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. It is currently served by Amtrak's Capitol Limited as well as MARC commuter service. Built by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the station is part of the Harpers Ferry Historic District. It is a wooden frame Victorian style building, dating from 1889. It sits on buried foundations of original Harpers Ferry armory buildings.In 2007, the station was rededicated following a $2.2 million renovation, which included restoration of the station's tower.