Existing comment:
John Brown's Fort
In 1891, investors dismantled the John Brown Fort and moved it to Chicago for the 1893 Columbian Exposition. The Fort languished in Chicago until 1895, when it was returned to Harpers Ferry and rebuilt on the Alexander Murphy farm, two miles from its original location. Murphy had offered five acres for the fort on his land because the railroad had covered the original site with a 14-foot embankment.
Recognizing the historical value of the John Brown Fort, Alexander Murphy protected and maintained the building for fifteen years. He allowed the public to visit the Fort at no charge. In 1896, the Colored Womens League gathered at the Fort as a symbolic gesture of the struggle for equal rights. Some of Murphy's most well-known guests were WEB Du Bois and Lewis Douglass, son of John Brown's friend Frederick Douglass. On August 17, 1906, Du Bois, Douglass and 100 other members of the Niagara Movement made a ceremonial pilgrimage to the Fort.
Because of its symbolic value to African Americans, Storer College purchased the Fort for $900 -- the same amount that Murphy paid in 1901. Storer rebuilt the Fort at the college campus on Camp Hill in 1910. The Fort was moved for a fourth time in 1968, when it was transported intact to Lower Town Harpers Ferry, within 100 feet of its original location. |