John Brown's Fort
[2] John Brown planned to capture the armory and the associated arsenal and use them to supply an army of abolitionists and run-away slave guerrillas.
Beginning their raid the night of October 16, Brown and his small army of 21 men (16 white and 5 black) captured the armory and arsenal and succeeded in taking 60 citizens of Harpers Ferry hostage.
The next morning, using a ladder as a battering ram, the Marines broke down the door and stormed the fire engine house.
To attract tourists, who were primarily Black, the words "John Brown's Fort" were painted on the engine house.
[8] Some white townspeople, for whom Brown was a madman and traitor rather than a hero, were not happy having the structure in their town, nor the Black tourists it attracted.
[6]: 182 In 1894, a movement was spearheaded by Washington D.C. journalist Kate Field, who also helped save the John Brown Farm State Historic Site,[6]: 182 to preserve the building and move it back to Harpers Ferry.
[6]: 182–183 It could not be moved back to its original location because the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad had covered it with an embankment in 1894, raising the rail line several feet to reduce the threat from flooding.
[12] It stands 150 feet (46 m) from the present-day location of the fort and is also part of Harpers Ferry National Historic Park.
The leader of the procession, a physician from Brooklyn named Owen Waller, "took off his shoes and socks and walked barefoot as if he were treading on holy ground".
When on the Storer Campus, it was inadvertently reassembled backward, as the builders did not realize that the glass negative they were using as a guide had a reversed image.
[18] When the college closed, the museum collection was auctioned off to pay debts, and borrowed items were returned to their owners.
[15]: 89 When Harpers Ferry National Monument was created, it did not include John Brown's Fort or its original location.
The Park Service was accused of using "white paternalism" to oppose Black wishes and detract from the significance of the Raid for African Americans.
[15]: 89 In 1960 the National Park Service acquired the building, which remained the main tourist attraction in Harpers Ferry.
Park Superintendent Joseph Prentice wanted to "drastically eliminate the hordes of visitors and their automobiles from this location".
The Fort is now part of the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park and sits 150 feet (46 m) east of its original location, at 39°19′22.95″N 77°43′46.43″W / 39.3230417°N 77.7295639°W / 39.3230417; -77.7295639.
From the point of view of crowd management, the Fort was placed in Arsenal Square to discourage parking in lower Harpers Ferry.
[18] A Harpers Ferry Historical Association publication states that "the John Brown Museum" now houses the original armory gate.
After the National Park Service's move of the building, it acquired the original site and portions of the former Armory grounds through land swaps with CSX, the operator of the former Baltimore and Ohio route as of 2021.
Swint filed a lawsuit in Boston's US District Court, but since the bell's original Federal records proving ownership were apparently lost in a fire, the judge dismissed the case without prejudice.
