BGuthrie Photos: WV -- Harpers Ferry NHP -- Downtown Visitor Center

WV -- Harpers Ferry NHP -- Downtown Visitor Center:

Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.

Recognize anyone? If you recognize specific folks (or other stuff) and I haven't labeled them, please identify them for the world. Click the little pencil icon

underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.

Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

Accessing as Spider: The system has identified your IP as being a spider.
IP Address: 3.145.178.240 -- Domain: Amazon Technologies
I love well-behaved spiders! They are, in fact, how most people find my site. Unfortunately, my network has a limited bandwidth and pictures take up bandwidth. Spiders ask for lots and lots of pages and chew up lots and lots of bandwidth which slows things down considerably for regular folk. To counter this, you'll see all the text on the page but the images are being suppressed. Also, some system options like merges are being blocked for you.
Note: Permission is NOT granted for spiders, robots, etc to use the site for AI-generation purposes. I'm sure you're thrilled by your ability to make revenue from my work but there's nothing in that for my human users or for me.
If you are in fact human, please email me at guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can check if your designation was made in error. Given your number of hits, that's unlikely but what the hell.

Help? The Medium (Email) links are for screen viewing and emailing. You'll want bigger sizes for printing. [Click here for additional help]

Share: Facebook Twitter Digg
[1] HARPVC_141111_01.JPG	[2] HARPVC_141111_12.JPG	[3] HARPVC_141111_15.JPG	[4] HARPVC_141111_21.JPG	[5] HARPVC_141111_24.JPG	[6] HARPVC_141111_30.JPG	[7] HARPVC_141111_35.JPG	[8] HARPVC_141111_42.JPG
[9] HARPVC_141111_46.JPG	[10] HARPVC_141111_53.JPG	[11] HARPVC_141111_57.JPG	[12] HARPVC_141111_60.JPG	[13] HARPVC_141111_68.JPG	[14] HARPVC_141111_70.JPG	[15] HARPVC_141111_74.JPG	[16] HARPVC_141111_77.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. HARPVC_141111_01.JPG: Life at Harpers Ferry in Late 1864 This is a glance at everyday events in Harpers Ferry in the fall of 1864.
2. HARPVC_141111_15.JPG: The Birth of a National Park: Harpers Ferry National Historical Park was created because people cared. They recognized the significance of this area's natural and cultural history for the benefit of future generations. On June 30, 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the bill establishing Harpers Ferry National Monument. This act assured the preservation and protection of the area, "its scenic beauty and historic landmarks." Through the years lands were added, boundaries changed and visitation increased. In 1963 President John F Kennedy signed legislation changing Harpers Ferry from a National Monument t a National Historical Park.
3. HARPVC_141111_24.JPG: The Master Armorer's House: The second highest ranking official in the United States Armory once entertained guests in this room, the parlor of the Master Armorers house. Construction for this home was approved by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis in 1850, and completed July 5, 1859 -- two days after John Brown secretly arrived in the area. Intended for Camp Hill, near the homes of the other Armory officials, the location was changed to this site so that one of the officers "could at all times be near the shops and stores." However, Master Armorer Benjamin Mills deemed the location unhealthy for his family, so the first occupant of the building was not a Master Armorer, but the Paymaster's Clerk, John Daingerfield. As a result, Daingerfield was taken hostage during John Brown's raid. Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee, commander of the United States Marines dispatched to capture Brown, took lodging in the home. During the Civil War, the building served as the headquarters for several different Union officers. In 1864 the swelling provided overnight accommodations for General Ulysses S. Grant. After 1865, the town leased it from the federal government for use as a schoolhouse and post office. Reclaimed by the government in 1884, the building was sold at a public auction and remained in private hands for over 70 years. Today, the Master Armorer's House has been restored to its 1859 appearance.
4. HARPVC_141111_35.JPG: Dear Senator: The President asked me to send you the attached pen used today when he approved S. 18, An Act to change the name of Harpers Ferry National Monument to Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. With best wishes, Sincerely, Lawrence F. O'Brien Special Assistant to the President
5. HARPVC_141111_42.JPG: 1956 Park Brochure
6. HARPVC_141111_46.JPG: 1812 What Is America?
7. HARPVC_141111_53.JPG: The Ingenuity of John Hall 200th Anniversary of Hall's Breechloader Patent "I have succeeded in establishing methods for fabricating arms exactly alike & with economy, by the hands of common workmen..." -- John H. Hall, 1822 Producing rifles with interchangeable parts required precision machines and a rigorous inspection system involving gauges. When John H. Hall received a government contract in 1819 to manufacture breechloading rifles at Harpers Ferry, he spent the next four years developing his machinery. The results were revolutionary. "Almost everything is performed by machinery, leaving very little dependent on manual labor." -- Lt. Col. George Talcott, US Ordnance Department, 1832 "One boy by the aid of these machines can perform more work than ten men with files, in the same time, and with greater accuracy." -- John H. Hall, 1834
8. HARPVC_141111_60.JPG: The Ingenuity of John Hancock Hall Who was Captain John Hall? Although no known likeness of him exists, John Hall was one of the most influential inventors and manufacturers of the early 19th century. Hall was a War of 1812 militiaman and gunsmith from Maine who contracted with the US Armory in Harpers Ferry to produce his patented breechloader rile. The weapon was revolutionary in the fact that it would be the first rifle ever developed with interchangeable parts. Hall's Rifle would also be the first regulation breechloader manufactured in significant numbers as over 20,000 patent Hall Rifles were produced at Harpers Ferry between the years 1819 and 1844. Hall's influence goes far beyond his rifle however. He would also become the father of the American Manufacturing System that would lay the foundation for American industry and be adopted by countries all over the world. Many goods that we buy today come off an assembly line that Hall perfected at his Rifle Works along the Shenandoah River in Harpers Ferry almost two centuries ago.
9. HARPVC_141111_68.JPG: Only a few machines operated at the armory during its early years. Skilled craftsmen produced most of a weapon by hand. Gunsmiths hand-forged early barrels and other gun parts with hammer and anvil. Welding a gun barrel required two men, and six completed barrels a day represented a fair day's work. Despite continual resistance by Harpers Ferry armorers, water-powered machines eventually replaced most skilled craftsmen. One worker could forge 14 to 16 barrels a day with the aid of a trip hammer. Nearly 20 years before the Musket Factory branch of the armory adopted precision machines, John Hall developed and utilized them in his rifle factory. None of Hall's precision machines are known to have survived. After John Hall died in 1841, the armory removed Hall's dilapidated buildings and constructed new ones. Indeed, many of his cutting machines were fitted with new holders and cutters for production of the Harpers Ferry M1841 "Mississippi" rifle. When the armory was looted by Confederates in 1861, it is likely that some of Hall's re-tooled machines were transported to southern armories.
10. HARPVC_141111_70.JPG: In 1826, the Carrington Committee, a special examining committee sent by the Ordnance Department, reported their findings in a 17-page document titled "On Hall's Machinery." The committee concluded that his machines "... are used for cutting iron & steel & for executing woodwork; all of which are essentially different from each other & differ materially from any other machines we have seen..." One example of the differences between Hall's manufacturing practices and those used by the Musket Factory may be seen in the manufacture of small metal gun parts, also called component parts. While gunsmiths at the Musket Factory were hand-forging component parts, with occasional use of machines to finish a piece, Hall's smith's utilized advanced cutting, drilling, and drop forge machines, which completely eliminated hand-forging at the Rifle Factory.
11. HARPVC_141111_74.JPG: Instead of using their hands to hammer a piece of metal into shape using a die, Hall's smiths placed the iron workpiece in the drop forge die, released the drop via a lever, and a massive weight fell downward, compressing the iron workpiece in the die with tremendous impact -- thereby producing the desired form. The part then travelled to Hall's patented precision cutting and drilling machines.
AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.) I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
Connection Not Secure messages? Those warnings you get from your browser about this site not having secure connections worry some people. This means this site does not have SSL installed (the link is http:, not https:). That's bad if you're entering credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information. But this site doesn't collect any personal information so SSL is not necessary. Life's good!
Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].