Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1873-07-31
Correspondence of the Springfield Union.I
Harper,s Ferry.


sessed by ''John's wife"
Correspondence of the Springfield Union.l
Harper's Ferry.
Picturesquely beautiful desolate and
historic Harper's Ferry 1t must be
seen to be fully understood and appre-
ciated. / said desolate, and so it looks,
and so it would be, indeed, but for the
fact that the Baltimore and Ohio railroad
carries such a traffic through the town
that the spirit of desolation, which
would otherwise 'fsit brooding," doesn't
get any opportunity to sit down at all.
| slept a troubled sleep at the Mountain
View House, with a railroad train thun-
dering down under my window every
ten minutes during the entire night,
every one of which was heavily laden
with coal from the Cumberland region.
And so they go, night and day, week in
and week out, going down loaded with
the ''black diamonds" and up empty.
But the location of the decaying town is
too picturesque and grandly magnificent
to be looked at only in the light of the
business which passes through If, too at
tractive in its wild and bold situation 10
be passed by without passionate admIra-
ton, and in its palmy ante-war days il
must have been place of great beauty
and interest. The industry of the town
was completely snuffed out when the
fires faded out and the embers smoul-
dered among the ruins of the govern
ment workshops, after they were burned
during the war. The destruction of
these shops was complete, and only one
of the buildings stands to-day, and that
in damaged and dilapidated condition.
| The engine house where John Browns
body. with his half dozen followers,
kept two or three hundred men at bayfo
a long time, is still standing, and Is
pointed out as the starting point from
! whence his soul went marching on, by
wav of the scaffold at CharlestOWn, to
! ''Glory, glory. hallcluiah." The holes
/ iu the walls through which he fired upon
/ his wOuld-be captors, have been filled
un, but otherwise the building stands
/ lust as il did when he made it such a
/ stronghold against such odds in numbers.
/ The partially destroyed and dismantled
! churches far up the hillside, the decay
/ ing and unoccupied buildings on the bus
/ mess streets, tell too plainly at glance,
! to make necessary one word OF eXplana-
! ton, that where three thousand people
were thriving and prosperous and hope
]
! to cling to a fading existence, and that
! their homes. but for the Baltimore and
/ Ohio railroad. would be only sheltering
places for bats and owls. The location
/ of the town is strikingly singular, the
business portion lying under a pointed
bluff. narrowed closely down between
the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers. and
/ the residences hung against the hillside
above the business streets. The govern
| ment workshops are located on level
ground on the Potomac side of the hill,
| and occupied the only level land in the
/ town There is most excellent and eX-
/ tensive water power, and like the Poto-
| mac. has natural dam of rocks run
ming across the entire bed of the river,
Just above the town. The frowning
hills of Maryland Heights on the one
side, and an abrupt spur of the Shenan-
doah mountains on the other, with the
high bluff behind the town, and the
narrow gorge in front, where the waters
of the combined rivers pass downward,
/ leave no place to look ont upon the
world: and surrounding hills and the
sky above all, seemingly shut Harpers
| Ferry out from any connection with
''all the world and the rest of mankind. u"
UP THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY.
We strapped our knapsacks on our
backs" or rather, to drop metaphor and
state facts simply, we took our carpet
bags and once more moved on over the
Baltimore and Ohio railroad, up the
Shenandoah Valley, which, during the
war, was for a long time the granary
and chief source of supplies of the rebel
army, and which suffered severely both
from their exactions and from the raids
-,
bears the marks. in destroyed residences
and dismantled shops and mills, of the
results of the '.late unpleasantness.
But such a valley. God never made a
finer or more fertile one, and | never
expected to see such a wealth of agricul-
tural results in one days outlook, as L
have seen hundreds of acres no, indeed,
but thousands upon thousands OF acres OF
wheat. ready sheafed for the threshing
machine. covering fields, in many in
stances. as far as the eye could reach,
and going. at that, at the rate of forty
miles an hour: thousands and thousands
of acres of corn, now being cultivated
and in the main promising well; and
again. thousands and thousands of acres
of heavy timothy and clover grass fields,
ready and waiting for the moving ma
chimes: numberless apple orchards, on
either side as we passed, freighted with
fruit. mostly native, and only wanting
grating and cultivation to furnish the
: best and largest quantities OF choice
. fruit,-these were what we had to feast
our ewes upon during our mornings Tlde
nm the Shenandoah valley. Soon after
leaving Harper's Ferry, we passed the
old town of Charlestown, and had point
ed out to US the place where John Brown
was hung, and also the sites OF the court
house where he was tried, and the lail
where he was confned,-both of which
have been torn down and new ones
erected in their stead and then came
) on through Strasbourg and Winchester,
and in sight of Newmarket, all full OF
historic remembrances of the war. The
road over which Sheridan took his ia
nous ride from Winchester, ''twenty
: miles away" lay along our route, and
I we saw where he galloped. In some
respects this is better than TO nave seer
. him do the galloping, especially 70 thost
5 NOT in the mood for being mixed up IN !
Y precious row, with fair chance Of be
i mo shot in the yitals. At Harrisonburg
t we came to the present end Of railroad
ing in the valley of the Shenandoah, the
road to the place being now under con
I struction and to be finished this season
S A Remarkable Poem.
{ The following, which is known