This historic town is a National Park today but it still has 300 residents. Harper’s Ferry is located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of West Virginia. It sits on the spot where the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers meet.
Key Points
Because of numerous ghost sightings over the years the area is considered to be one of America’s most haunted.
Harpers Ferry
Peter Stephens first settled the area in 1732. He ran ferries on both rivers and built a gristmill. Fifteen years later Robert Harper bought Stephen’s squatter’s rights.
The first home Harper built was swept away in a flood so he began to build a new larger home on higher ground but he died before he could complete it. This home still stands in Harper’s Ferry today and is the oldest remaining structure.
It is one of the many old buildings in town that are considered to be haunted.
When the Harper’s first moved to what was then known as “The Hole” it is said Rachel, Robert’s wife, cried for days, begging to be returned to civilization.
After the flood took their first home, Robert had to work on their larger house on his own—most the of the laborers were away fighting in the Revolutionary War. He requested Rachel bury their gold and tell no one where she hid it—afraid roaming renegades would rob them.
After Robert died, Rachel continued to work on the house herself. She fell from a ladder and was instantly killed—carrying the secret of where the gold was hidden with her.
In the 1800s the local residents were convinced this house was haunted—they were even afraid to go near it. Witnesses at the time stated they saw a woman dressed in 18thcentury fashions peering from one high window.
This figure was seen looking down into where the Harper’s garden once was. Many felt Rachel was still guarding the couple’s gold.
In 1796, Harper’s Ferry became more populated when George Washington had an armory built at Harper’s Ferry. In 1820, John Hall established a musket shop and ten years later in 1830 he was using the first “assembly line” to mass-produce his product.
Another haunting from the town’s early years is about a Phantom Army. In 1798, America was close to a war with France. Troops were sent to Harper’s Ferry but this war never started.
It is said these troops paraded down the main street every night. Although they never went into battle many of these soldiers fell victim to a cholera outbreak and were buried on Camp Hill.
Witnesses state they can still hear these troops marching through town and the sounds of fife and drum are heard.
Harper’s Ferry is best known for John Brown’s raid in 1859. Brown was a strict Calvinist who also was an abolitionist. He decided to rid the South of slavery.
Brown led 21 men into Harper’s Ferry on the 17th of October. His plan was to take the armory and then arm all the slaves in the area—with hopes they would rush to his aid—he then would set up a free state.
His plan worked until the shooting started. Within one day the citizens and militia at Harper’s Ferry had cornered John Brown and what was left of his men in the engine house adjacent to the armory.
John Brown and his men
at engine house.
Three days later Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee led 100 US Marines into town. Lee had left in such as hurry he did not even have enough time to put his uniform on. Lee’s men stormed the engine house, which effectively ended the raid.
John Brown was captured and was hanged on the gallows two weeks later. But in a way he won for his raid turned out to be the catalyst for the Civil War.
John Brown’s raid, three Civil War battles and other tragedies are the reasons why the West Virginia town of Harper’s Ferry is haunted.
Harper’s Ferry is apparently haunted by John Brown’s ghost.
Modern visitors walking through town mistake his ghost for a re-enactment of history. Some of these witnesses asked her to take pictures with them, only to discover later that their cameras did not capture this figure.
Witnesses who have identified his ghost as John Brown describe him as having “piercing eyes of fire and brimstone that would put the fear of God in anyone who looked at him.”
John Brown also frequented a farm located 5 miles from Harper’s Ferry, known as the Kennedy Farmhouse. He and his men stayed at this farm the night before the attack.
They slept in the little attic on the farm. Witnesses reported hearing a variety of sounds coming from the upper two floors.
A rhythm believed to be John Brown himself, breathing, talking and snoring is heard. Others reported hearing a “crowd of people” running up the stairs when no one was around.
One of John Brown’s men was a free man named Dangerfield Newby. Dangerfield had been freed by his white father but his wife and seven children were slaves.
His wife’s master in Warrenton, Virginia, told Dangerfield that if he paid $1,500, he would release his wife and youngest son. However, after Dangerfield managed to get hold of that money, the master raised his price.
Frustrated, Dangerfield joins Brown in hopes of freeing his family. During the raid on Harper’s Ferry, Dangerfield is the first to die.
The town, though having an arsenal, was short of bullets, so the militia and citizens used whatever was on hand as ammunition. Dangerfield was shot in the throat.
Residents of Harbor Ferry still remember with bitterness the Nat Turner slave rebellion of 30 years earlier. They raged, mutilated, and dragged Dangerfield’s body into an alley where they left it to the pigs.
Hog Alley
This alley is now known as Hog Alley and is haunted. Eyewitnesses reported seeing a 45-year-old black man wearing baggy pants in this alley. He also wears an old slouch hat. He was described as having a hideous scar across his throat.
He thinks Dangerfield is going on because he’s still trying to free his family.
The house on Old Taylor Lane in Harper’s Ferry is known as The Haunted Cottage or Booth’s House.
It is sometimes called Booth’s House because John Wilkes Booth, the famous actor and assassin of Abraham Lincoln, sometimes stayed here.
In particular, when he arrived to see John Brown, one of his opponents, hanged. He was also known to host his friends in the room he rented upstairs.
This house has a lot of activity, including: Footsteps and audible singing on the second floor. Eyewitnesses reported that they had their hair and clothes pulled out and that their most common sightings were of moving objects.
Witnesses reported that the items disappeared in front of them only to reappear moments later.
The dramatic history of this town in northeastern West Virginia in the Blue Ridge Mountains is left with ghosts doing unfinished business.
St. Peter’s Catholic Church towers over Harpers Ferry and is its finest structure. Made in the neo-Gothic style, a stone staircase leads to it.
It is built from local stone and has beautiful Tiffany windows. Inside is an impressive marble altar. It was built in the 1830s and renovated in 1889.
It is the only church in Harpers Ferry to survive the Civil War and is still an active church today.
St. Peter’s was used as a hospital during the war, and Father Costello, a priest at the time, cared for the wounded. The ghost of the young Catholic soldier can still be heard.
This soldier was brought to the church wounded, but was not allowed in because his wounds were not as severe as those of the others. He was said to have felt relieved to find himself in a Catholic church.
He had not yet lost heart when the sun went down and the blood of his life slowly flowed out. When he was finally carried across the threshold of the church, he faintly whispered, “Thank God I am saved.” But tragically he died.
At sunset, several witnesses reported seeing a golden light on the doorstep of the church and hearing a faint voice say, “Thank God I am saved.”
Others said that as they passed Jefferson Rock late at night, they saw a strange-looking priest walking through the wall of the church. People tried to talk to him, but he never responded to their wishes.
An eyewitness who saw the priest come down the hill, turn left towards the church and enter the wall, said the temperature had dropped.
He and his friend were then walking down the stone steps when they felt themselves being pushed down the stairs. They had to bend over and hold on to keep from falling. Both said their legs were shaking.
Another haunting in Harper’s Ferry takes place on a stretch of railroad track that runs through the gun yard.
The first railway line came to the city in 1833. Part of this trail passes through a group of huts near the river. When they left, the poor flocked there.
The family living in one of these huts has an 11-year-old daughter named Jenny. One evening she was standing by the fire and her dress caught fire.
Frightened, she ran out of the hut onto the rails. She was then hit by an oncoming train and died. Today, engineers from nearby cities don’t like to drive around Harpers Ferry, especially on foggy nights.
Many reported seeing “a fireball that raced along the rails.” At the same time, they heard a loud scream.
Some even stopped their diesels, but never on time. They feel a jolt and go to investigate when their train comes to a complete halt. But they didn’t find anything.
Because of this, engineers have traditionally reduced the speed on this section of the track. Locals claim that if train horns are heard at night, Jenny has returned.
