Harpers Ferry: Almost heaven for visiting national parks
By Tom Adkinson
October 14, 2022

HARPERS FERRY, W.Va. – Travelers who carry National Park Service Passports, little blue books where you stamp your date of visit at the national treasures the park service oversees, are in “almost heaven” in Harpers Ferry, W.Va.

You can easily reach at least six NPS units from this tiny town that fewer than 350 people call home. It may be the most story-filled small town in America.

It perches on a cliff at the easternmost point of West Virginia overlooking the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers. Virginia and Maryland are immediately adjacent. There are shops, restaurants and walking tours, and outfitters are available to help with rafting, tubing, ziplining and kayaking trips.

History happened here – from the arrival of the first successful American railroad and John Brown’s attack on slavery, to the largest surrender of federal troops in the Civil War and the education of formerly enslaved people in one of the nation’s earliest integrated schools.

Harper’s Ferry was in Virginia when abolitionist John Brown raided a federal arsenal in 1859, hoping to ignite a slave rebellion. The raid failed, but the Civil War began in 1861, during which the new state of West Virginia was admitted to the Union.

(In a note of historic irony, two of the federal officers who responded to Brown’s raid on the arsenal were Robert E. Lee and J.E.B. Stuart, both of whom soon took up arms against the federal government.)

Here are snapshots of six National Park Service units that tell the stories of John Brown and many other major players and events in American history.

• Harpers Ferry National Historical Park surrounds the town and offers tours, museums, and hiking and biking trails covering 3,745 acres in West Virginia, Virginia and Maryland. A 2.5-hour guided tour examines battlefields, slavery, the Civil War and the area’s geography, natural history and industry.

• The 184.5-mile Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Canal National Historical Park from Georgetown, in Washington D.C., to Cumberland, Maryland, runs along the Potomac. Its gentle grade along the Towpath Trail makes for easy hiking and biking.

• The 500-mile Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail from Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Highlands to Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay wanders through Harpers Ferry, and its headquarters is here. George Washington initially explored this route, and you can take in the wonder on foot, bicycle, horse and boat.

• The 2,190-mile Appalachian National Scenic Trail from Georgia to Maine cuts through the middle of Harpers Ferry, and the trail’s headquarters is also located here. (If you take a day hike on the AT, brag on only that. It takes five to seven months to hike the full length.)

• The first stop on the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail is in Harpers Ferry. This trail touches 16 states and covers almost 4,900 miles to tell the story of the “Corps of Discovery” that President Thomas Jefferson commissioned to explore the Louisiana Purchase. Meriwether Lewis obtained supplies here and headed west to connect with William Clark. Their expedition left from St. Louis in 1804.

• The 136-mile Washington Heritage Trail National Scenic Byway runs through West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle. It has 50 heritage sites tracing the footsteps of George Washington and his family, who were large landowners in the region.

Trip-planning resources: NPS.gov/hafe, WVtourism.com and HistoricHarpersFerry.org