CWPT Gives 176 Acres To Harpers Ferry NHP
The transfer ceremony on School House Ridge was one the events commemorating the 150th anniversary of John Brown’s Oct. 16, 1859, raid on the Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. CWPT President Jim Lighthizer, Acting Superintendent Dennis Frye and Friends of Harpers Ferry President Scot Faulkner took part in the ceremony. Gen. Thomas J. Jackson occupied the ridge Sept. 13-15, 1862, when he laid siege to the Federal garrison at Harpers Ferry. The Union force of 12,500 surrendered Sept. 15, the largest surrender of American troops until World War II. The donated tract is part of the same ridge, but not adjacent to where local developers dug a 1,900-foot trench and laid water and sewer lines without a permit on National Park Service property over a weekend in 2006. CWPT purchased the property in 2002 as part of a larger parcel totaling 232 acres. Private donations of $411,000 were matched with federal and state grants to complete the $1.7 million total transaction. After acquiring the property, 56 acres were sold to the National Park Service for the appraised fair market value of $420,000. CWPT maintained the remaining acreage until park boundaries were expanded. At the ceremony Lighthizer said, “We were honored to serve as temporary owners and stewards of this hallowed ground on School House Ridge, at the very core of the Harpers Ferry Battlefield. Land this historic belongs to all Americans; it belongs in a National Park.” Keith McIntosh, representing U.S. Senator Robert Byrd, a leader in extending the park’s boundaries and securing funds for land preservation, read a letter from Byrd, who was ill, expressing his happiness that the park continues to grow and thrive. Now that the park has officially taken ownership of the property, construction of additional walking trails and installation of interpretive markers will soon begin. According to Frye, visitor parking and restroom facilities are already in place nearby. Additional details about the School House Ridge purchase were reported by Civil War News in 2002: Harpers Ferry Caverns, an underground tourist attraction with campground, was active there in the 1960s and ‘70s. The property is across Bakerton Road from 56 acres of Union skirmish line on the back side of Bolivar Heights, which the Civil War Trust donated to the park in 1995. The Harpers Ferry park includes close to 3,300 acres of Civil War battlefield land in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia. The park interprets the 1859 raid, the 1862 battle and the 1906 public meeting of the Niagara Movement, an early cornerstone of the modern Civil Rights Movement.
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