Maryland Heights from Harpers Ferry, West Virginia

Looking across the Potomac River toward Maryland from Harpers Ferry, around 1859. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Civil War Collection.

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The scene in 2015:

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Assuming the estimated date is correct, the first photo was probably taken within a few months before or after John Brown’s raid on the Harpers Ferry Armory.  It shows the view from the Armory looking across the Potomac River toward Maryland Heights, with the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad bridge to the right.  The Chesapeake & Ohio Canal also ran through this scene; the buildings across the river were built on either side of Lock 33.

Within a few years, much of this scene would change.  Harpers Ferry changed hands many times during the war, and during one of their retreats the Confederate forces burned the bridge, as seen in the 1861 photo in the previous post, which was taken from the opposite side of the river.  The bridge has since been replaced several times, and the current one can be seen on the far right, a little upstream of the original one.

The Chesapeake & Ohio Canal survived the war, and despite increased competition from railroads it remained in operation until 1924.  Today, the stone remains of Lock 33 are still standing, hidden from this view by the railroad bridge and the trees along the river.  All of the buildings have long since disappeared, though, except for one: the two story stone house right up against the cliff on the left side of the photo.  It was built in the winter of 1840-1841, and survived John Brown’s raid, the Civil War, and a number of floods before being gutted by a fire in the 1960s. The stone walls are still standing, though, and it is now part of the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.

One historical curiosity in the second photo is the advertisement painted on the rocks near the center of the photo.  It reads “Mennen’s Borated Talcum Toilet Powder,” and it was painted in 1906 for railroad passengers as they traveled through here.  Although not as distinct as it once was, the controversial advertisement is still there, despite efforts in the 1960s to remove it using paint remover and carbon black.

Harpers Ferry, West Virginia

Looking across the Potomac River towards Harpers Ferry from the Maryland side of the river, around June 14, 1861. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Civil War Collection.

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The same view in 2015:

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The town of Harpers Ferry had only about 1,300 residents at the start of the Civil War, and its land area was just a half a square mile, but it became among the most contested places of the war.  It was literally located on the border of the Union and the Confederacy, changing hands eight times during the war and ending up in a different state by the time it was over.

As its name implies, this area was first settled as a ferry crossing.  Originally part of Virginia, it is located at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers, and beginning in 1733 colonist Peter Stevens operated a ferry across the Potomac here, enabling settlers from Maryland and Pennsylvania to access the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.  The town isn’t named Stevens Ferry, though, because around 1748 he sold his land and ferry to Robert Harper, who operated it until his death in 1782.

Because of its transportation connections and relatively defensible position, Harpers Ferry was one of two locations, along with Springfield, Massachusetts, selected by George Washington for federal armories.  Further transportation developments came in the 1830s: the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal (seen in the lower foreground of both photos) was completed as far as Harpers Ferry in 1833, several stagecoach lines were opened in 1834, and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad reached the Maryland (foreground) side of the river later in 1834.  The first railroad bridge was completed in 1837, allowing a direct connection from the armory to the rapidly growing national rail network.

By 1850, this small town had grown to over 1,700 people thanks to the armory (visible along the waterfront to the right in the first photo), but before the end of the decade it would become the center of one of the major precursors to the Civil War.  In October 1859, abolitionist John Brown led a raiding party of 22 men in an attempt to capture the arsenal and start a slave rebellion.  The raid ultimately failed, and most of the raiders were either killed or were captured and executed, including John Brown, whose December 2 execution was seen as a martyrdom by many northern abolitionists.

The Civil War began just a year and a half after the raid, and Virginia’s state legislators voted to secede on April 17, 1861.  One of the state’s first objectives was to take the Harpers Ferry arsenal, which at the time was guarded by just 65 men.  Led by Lieutenant Roger Jones, they destroyed the arsenal and its 15,000 guns before evacuating the town ahead of the Confederates.  The Confederates didn’t occupy the town for long, though.  They left on June 14, and burned the Baltimore & Ohio bridge as they left.  The remains of the bridge can be seen in the foreground of the first photo, which according to the caption was “photographed immediately after its evacuation by the rebels.”

When the first photo was taken, the town was still relatively intact, but as the war progressed it became somewhat of a no man’s land.  Despite the loss of the armory, it was still a vital transportation corridor for armies on both sides, so between 1861 and 1863 it changed hands several more times.  West Virginia became a state on June 20, 1863, with Harpers Ferry citizens voting 196 to 1 to leave Virginia and join the union.  The town was briefly occupied by the Confederates in early July, but they soon evacuated for the last time and Union solders returned on July 13, finally bringing stability to Harpers Ferry for the rest of the war.

In terms of population, Harpers Ferry never fully recovered from the Civil War.  The armory never reopened, and the population has steadily fallen to less than 300 as of the 2015 census.  However, it has become a major tourist destination, with the Harpers Ferry National Historic Park now comprising much of the historic town.  Although the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal has not operated in nearly a century, there are still several railroad lines that pass through here.

One of the bridges, seen to the right in the 2015 photo, also carries the Appalachian Trail over the Potomac River on a pedestrian walkway on the left side of the bridge.  The bridge pier in the foreground is from an earlier railroad bridge that had been built on the spot of the one that was destroyed in 1861.  This bridge, in turn, was washed away in a 1936 flood, and it was never rebuilt.  Today, the modern railroad bridge, as well as trees along the river, help to hide the view of Harpers Ferry, with only a few buildings visible in the 2015 scene.

(Much of the information for this post came from “To Preserve the Evidences of a Noble Past”: An Administrative History of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park (2004).  For further reading, it and other resources are available online here at the National Park Service website.)

84 Temple Street, Springfield, Mass

The house at 84 Temple Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

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The house in 2015:

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This Queen Anne style house was built around 1880, at about the same time as its nearly identical neighbor to the right.  One early owner of this house was W.H. Burrall, whose name appears on the 1882 city atlas.  He died before 1899, when the city atlas lists the house as belonging to his heirs, and he appears to be the same W.F. Burrall who co-owned Hawkins & Burrall, a Springfield-based bridge building company.  Along with this, his name also appears in historical records as a consulting engineer for the Boston & Albany Railroad.

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By 1900, the house was owned by Louis C. Hyde, Springfield’s postmaster.  According to the 1900 census, this house was pretty crowded; he lived here with his wife, their son, two daughters, a daughter-in-law and son-in-law, two grandchildren, and three servants, for a total of 12 people in the house.  Hyde was featured in a 1913 volume of Automobile Journal, which mentioned that he was using a Springfield-built Indian motorcycle with a tricar attachment to deliver parcel post mail around the city.  The photo to the right was printed in the magazine, and shows him on the motorcycle.

 

82 Temple Street, Springfield, Mass

The house at 82 Temple Street, seen here around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

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The house in 2015:

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Compared to the first photo, this historic Queen Anne style house on Temple Street has seen better days, although it is being restored as of the July 2015 photo.  Both this house and its nearly identical neighbor to the left were built around 1880, at a time when this neighborhood was popular among upper middle class professionals such as bankers, lawyers, doctors, and businessmen.  In the early 1900s, this house was owned by Robert O. Morris, who served as the clerk of courts for many years, and was also a director of the United Electric Light Company, president of the Springfield Five Cents Savings Bank, and served in similar roles for several other area companies.  He was also an amateur ornithologist, and in 1901 he published a book, The Birds of Springfield and Vicinity.

Despite the changes in this neighborhood over the years, the 2015 photo shows that the house still retains many of its original decorative elements.  The windows are all new, the shutters have been removed, and the front porch is being completely replaced, but otherwise it still looks very similar to what it would have looked like when Robert O. Morris lived here a century ago.

25 Mattoon Street, Springfield, Mass

The building at 25 Mattoon Street, seen around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

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The building in 2015:

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This building is a little different from the rest of the houses on the south side of Mattoon Street. It was built in 1891, making it the newest on that side of the street. Unlike all of the others, it was built as an apartment building, and its Romanesque architecture is very different from the rest of the street. It is also known as the Yadow Building, because of the somewhat enigmatic “Yadow” inscription in the center of the parapet, and it is part of the Quadrangle-Mattoon Street Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

William H. Haile House, Springfield, Mass

The William H. Haile House at 41 Mattoon Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

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The houses in 2015:

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This house on Mattoon Street was one of the first to be built on Mattoon Street; it was completed in 1871, and the first owner was William H. Haile, a businessman who had just moved to Springfield from Hinsdale, New Hampshire. Haile’s father had served as governor of New Hampshire from 1857 to 1859, and the younger Haile continued the family’s political legacy.  He represented Hinsdale in the New Hampshire state legislature for three years, and after he came to Springfield he served a year as the city’s mayor, in 1881.  From 1882 to 1883, he served in the Massachusetts Senate, and from 1890 to 1892 he was the Lieutenant Governor.  He was the Republican candidate for governor in 1892, but he lost a close race to incumbent governor William E. Russell.  I don’t know long Haile lived in this house, though, because by the early 1880s he was living in a larger house a few blocks away at 49 Chestnut Street, where the D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts is located today.