Thursday, May 14, 2009

Harper's Ferry

Above is a photograph of Harper's Ferry, where the Shenandoah River and the Potomac River merge to cut through the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Virginia piedmont region on the other side. My great-great-great grandfather Jonathan Hunsicker moved from Winchester, Virginia to Harper's Ferry before the Civil War in order to help build the B&O Railroad, the first railroad in the United States. He lived there with his family through the Civil War, continuing to work on the B&O Railroad, before moving to Ohio after the Civil War. His mother and his brothers and sisters are all buried in Mount Hebron cemetery in Winchester, Virginia. An interesting question is whether his brothers fought for the Confederate Army -- or the Union Army - during the Civil War. Because Jonathan Hunsicker worked for the B&O Railroad in Harper's Ferry, he lived there when it was alternately occupied by the Confederate and the Union Army. In fact, he lived in Harper's Ferry during John Brown's raid and capture at Harper's Ferry before the Civil War.