School House Ridge North: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, National Park Service

Donaldson, Emily

The School House Ridge North property measures about 304 acres and is located approximately two miles west of Harpers Ferry and five miles northeast of Charles Town, in Jefferson County, West Virginia. To the south it is partially bordered by U.S. Route 340, while to the east it runs along Route 27, or Bakerton Road. It was acquired by the National Park Service in 2004 through a partnership with the Trust for Public Land and the Civil War Preservation Trust, and is primarily composed of farmland. It represents a portion of the property added to Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in 2004 with approval from Congress, which expanded the total area of the Park from 2,505 to 3,645 acres. Harpers Ferry National Monument was established in 1944, and in 1963 was re-designated as Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. School House Ridge North is divided into three tracts. Tract 102-34 (70.74 acres) encompasses the Ott Farm, and was acquired by the National Park Service from Blanche and Elmer Ott in 2005. Tract 102-31 (56 acres) comprises a portion of the old Prospect Hill Farm once owned by the Moler family. It borders Route 27 and was acquired from the Civil War Preservation Trust in 2003. Tract 102-33 (176.32 acres) includes the old Jellystone Campground. The properties contained within the School House Ridge North site were previously known as the Moler, Rau, Fritts and Ott Farms, while a wooded area in the northwest corner is the former site of a Jellystone Campground. Part of the landscape comprises the western half of the former Prospect Hill Farm, owned by the Moler family in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The property is significant for its involvement in military history (1861-1865), specifically the role it played during the Battle of Harpers Ferry. This confrontation, which transpired between September 13 and 15, 1862, resulted in the largest surrender of federal troops recorded for the entire Civil War. School House Ridge North is also significant for its agricultural history (1780-1868), which is indicative of the agrarian landscape established by many early European settlers. Much of School House Ridge North today still consists of cleared and regularly used farmland, as it did in the past. Trees and a limited understory line the edges of wide open fields, breaking up the broad, rolling vistas. A large patch of woods in the northwestern corner of the property is concentrated around the old Jellystone Campground and Harpers Ferry Caverns area. In the southeastern corner, a small clump of trees separates the Ott Farmhouse and Barn from the surrounding farmland, and also conceals the old Moler Barn foundations and family cemetery. Thus the site has two primary landscapes, characterized as woodland and farmland. Although its date of construction excludes it from contributing to the cultural landscape of School House Ridge North, the Fritts barn is an important and unique structure whose architectural style is regionally significant. As the first James Way barn to be constructed in West Virginia, this building will be reevaluated in the future as an important architectural resource.

School House Ridge North: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, National Park Service

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