Millwrights and Entrepreneurs: 240 Years of Water Power at Harpers Ferry, 1751-1991 Paperback – September 19, 2025

DID YOU KNOW: ROBERT HARPER obtained his 125-acre patent from Lord Fairfax in 1751, but was not the first person to obtain a warrant for the land, and his name was not on the original certificate of survey. GEORGE WASHINGTON (top left), over the objections of his own War Dept., insisted that the “situation in the fork at the junction of the Potowmac and Shenandoah rivers is the most eligible” for the establishment of a federal armory. JAMES STUBBLEFIELD, who oversaw the installation of Thomas Blanchard’s lathe for cutting gun stocks, was so impressed with the new machine that he sent a sample gunstock to President James Madison. JOHN H. HALL, hampered by a lack of water power, wrote of the “strangemistake of those who in the first instance, constructed the works at Harpers ferry for the National Armory.” LEWIS WERNWAG did more than any individual to develop the water power at Harpers Ferry, building or repairing dams, constructing forebays and wheel pits, and fabricating water wheels and power train components. ABRAHAM H. HERR (above, second from left) turned around the fortunes of the merchant flour mill on Virginius Island, more than doubling production between 1850 and 1860. JAMES H. BURTON (above, third from left) facilitated the adoption of English barrel-rolling technology by the U.S. Armories, and patented his own “Improvement in the Manufacture of Gun-Barrels.” JONATHAN C. CHILD and JOHN A. MCCREIGHT resurrected water-powered industry on Virginius Island after the Civil War, refitting the old cotton factory as a flour mill, only to see their prosperity swept away by the Flood of 1870. THOMAS H. SAVERY (above right) erected two pulp mills that developed 4,944 horsepower, dwarfing all previous attempts to tap thepower of the rivers at Harpers Ferry. Read more