John Brown's Fort facts for kids
John Brown's Fort was first built in 1848. It was used as a guard house and a fire engine house for the Harpers Ferry Armory, which was a government factory that made weapons. Harpers Ferry was in Virginia back then, but since 1863, it's been in West Virginia. The building was described as a brick house with a slate roof, about 35 feet long and 24 feet wide.
This building became very famous because of John Brown. He was a person who strongly opposed slavery. In 1859, he used this building as a hideout during his raid on Harpers Ferry. He hoped this raid would help end slavery in the United States. John Brown's Fort is the only building from the original Armory that is still standing today. The other buildings were destroyed during the Civil War.
After the raid, the building quickly became a popular place for tourists to visit. The words "John Brown's Fort" were even painted over the doors to attract more people. The fort has been moved four times! It went to Chicago in 1891 for a big exhibition. Then, in 1895, it moved to a farm near Harpers Ferry. In 1909, it was moved to the campus of Storer College, a historically Black college in Harpers Ferry. Finally, in 1968, the National Park Service moved it to where it is now, close to its original spot in Harpers Ferry. A tall stone pillar, called an obelisk, now stands where the fort was first built. The fort, the obelisk, and the Storer College campus are all part of the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.
You can even see John Brown's Fort on West Virginia's special America the Beautiful quarter coin!
Contents
John Brown's Raid
John Brown planned to take over the armory and its weapons storage. He wanted to use these weapons to arm a group of people who fought against slavery and formerly enslaved people. His goal was to start a rebellion to end slavery. On the night of October 16, 1859, Brown and his small group of 21 men began their raid. They successfully captured the armory and took 60 citizens of Harpers Ferry as hostages.
Local townspeople and the militia fought back. They killed some of Brown's men. This forced Brown and his remaining men to take shelter in the strong fire engine house. Brown's men had already placed several hostages inside the building, planning to use it for defense. On the night of October 17, U.S. Marines arrived in Harpers Ferry. They were sent by President Buchanan to stop Brown's rebellion. Brevet Colonel Robert E. Lee and his aide J.E.B. Stuart were in charge.
The next morning, the Marines used a ladder like a battering ram to break down the door. They stormed into the fire engine house. One Marine and several of Brown's men were killed during the attack. Some of Brown's men managed to escape, but most were captured. John Brown himself was stabbed by the Marine commander, Lt. Green, and captured. All the hostages were set free.
After the Raid
The engine house was the only part of the Harper's Ferry Armory that remained standing after the Civil War. Harpers Ferry saw a lot of fighting during the war, and the town changed hands many times.
To attract visitors, especially Black tourists, the words "John Brown's Fort" were painted on the building. It became a very important place for African Americans in the late 1800s. However, by 1882, the building was in poor condition. Its roof and windows were gone.
Many bricks from the fort were taken or sold as souvenirs. For example, Frederick Douglass, a famous abolitionist, had one at his home. Some white townspeople were not happy about the fort being in their town. They saw John Brown as a crazy person and a traitor, not a hero. They also didn't like the Black tourists the fort attracted.
The Four Moves
Move to Chicago
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad bought the fort and the land it was on. They wanted to move their train tracks to a place that wouldn't flood as easily. In 1891, the building was sold for $1,000 to someone who wanted to show it at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. This was its first move. But the plan didn't work out because people didn't see a connection between "Brown Fort" and Chicago. After the exhibition, the building was taken apart and left in an empty lot.
In 1894, a journalist named Kate Field started a movement to bring the building back to Harpers Ferry. It couldn't go back to its exact original spot. This was because the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad had built up the land there to protect the train tracks from floods. So, in 1895, the original spot was marked with a white stone obelisk. This obelisk is about 150 feet from where the fort is now and is also part of Harpers Ferry National Historic Park.
Return to Harpers Ferry Area
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad offered to ship the fort back to Harpers Ferry for free. This was its second move. They had lost passengers when the fort was moved to Chicago and hoped bringing it back would help. Alexander and Mary Murphy offered 5 acres of their farm, about 2 miles from Harpers Ferry, as a new location. Money was raised to take the fort apart and rebuild it. Even important people like William McKinley, who was Governor of Ohio, helped donate money. The fort was rebuilt on the Murphy farm by November 1895. About 8,000 new bricks were needed to replace the ones that had been lost. While it was there, Mr. Murphy used it as a "barracks" (a place for soldiers to stay) and to store wheat.
The Murphy farm was bought by the National Park Service in 2002 and is now part of the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.
Moving the fort back to Harpers Ferry did attract African-American visitors, just as the railroad hoped. The first national meeting of the National League of Colored Women took a trip to Harpers Ferry to see John Brown's Fort.
Visitor numbers peaked in 1906 when the Niagara Movement held its first American meeting at Storer College in Harpers Ferry. The Niagara Movement was a group that came before the NAACP. Attendees held a special "John Brown Day" memorial on August 17. Over one hundred important African-American men and women walked from Storer College to the fort. Among them were W.E.B. DuBois and Lewis Douglas. The leader of the walk, a doctor named Owen Waller, even "took off his shoes and socks and walked barefoot as if he were treading on holy ground".
Move to Storer College
Because of the Niagara Movement meeting, the fort was moved again in 1909. This was its third move. It was moved from the Murphy farm, which was "somewhat inaccessible," to Storer College. It stayed at Storer College until 1969, which is longer than it has been at any other spot since 1859. The college bought the fort from Alexander Murphy for $900. Mr. Murphy wanted money because so many tourists had damaged his crops.
The fort was taken apart and moved to the college campus. When it was put back together at Storer College, it was accidentally rebuilt backward! The builders were using a glass negative (an old type of photo) as a guide, and they didn't realize the image was reversed.
While at the college, the fort was used as the college museum. It had glass cases with "a collection of old guns, helmets, money and other curiosities." An elevated walkway was also added inside. The college even published a pamphlet about John Brown and the fort.
Students at Storer College gave tours of the fort. They were very proud of it. The fort, as a symbol of freedom, meant a lot to them. Giving these tours was a required part of their studies for many students, helping them practice public speaking.
In 1918, former students of Storer College paid for a plaque to be placed on the west wall of the firehouse.
THAT THIS NATION MIGHT HAVE
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
THAT SLAVERY SHOULD BE REMOVED
FOREVER FROM AMERICAN SOIL
John Brown
AND HIS 21 MEN GAVE THEIR
LIVES.
TO COMMEMORATE THEIR
HEROISM THIS TABLET IS
PLACED ON THIS BUILDING
WHICH HAS SINCE BEEN
KNOWN AS
John Brown's Fort
BY THE
ALUMNI OF STORER COLLEGE
1918
The National Park Service has many old photographs, plans, and descriptions of the building from when it was at Storer College. When the college closed in 1955, the museum collection was sold to pay debts.
The National Park Service Acquires and Moves the Building
When the Harpers Ferry National Monument was created, it did not include John Brown's Fort or its original location. The local Black community did not want the fort moved away from the college. The college leaders were also unsure about giving it to the Park Service. Some people felt the Park Service was trying to control things and lessen the importance of the raid for African Americans.
In 1960, the National Park Service bought the building. It remained the main tourist attraction in Harpers Ferry. In the early 1960s, private shops even operated inside it. Many visitors came to see it at the college, which made it hard for the Park Service to carry out their plans for the former college grounds. The Park Superintendent wanted to "drastically eliminate the hordes of visitors and their automobiles from this location."
To do this, the Park Service decided to move the fort again in 1968. This was its fourth move. They wanted to remove "the only important attraction from the Storer College campus." The original location was covered by a train track embankment, so it was moved to a spot close to the original, in the most central part of Harpers Ferry. The fort is now part of the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. It sits about 150 feet east of its original spot. It is the most visited tourist attraction in West Virginia.
The fort was placed in Arsenal Square to help manage crowds and discourage too many cars from parking in lower Harpers Ferry. Visitors now park in special areas and take shuttle buses.
The building isn't exactly like the original because it has been taken apart, moved, and rebuilt so many times. The doors are not the original ones. The building was painted gray when it was part of the Armory. As mentioned before, 8,000 bricks have replaced the original ones that were taken as souvenirs. It's also not a perfect copy because parts of the building were "rebuilt backward" when builders used a reversed photo. In 2005, it was described as "a bit smaller than its original size." Experts say that the age of the different parts of the building cannot be confirmed.
A publication from the Harpers Ferry Historical Association says that the "John Brown Museum" now has the original armory gate. This gate had been taken by Alexander Murphy, who used it for his coal yard. It was given to the National Park Service in 1991 by Jim Kuhn, a great-great-grandson of the Murphys.
After the National Park Service moved the building, they also acquired the original site and parts of the old Armory grounds. This happened through land swaps with CSX, the company that runs the old Baltimore and Ohio train route today. As of 2021, the Park Service does not have immediate plans to use this land.
Replica at Discovery Park of America
A copy of the firehouse was built in 2012 at the Discovery Park of America museum park in Union City, Tennessee. There is a sign there that explains its connection to John Brown's raid.
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