Chambers-Murphy Farm Cultural Landscape Inventory and Report

AECOM

The Chambers-Murphy farm is a component landscape of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, located southwest of the park’s Visitor Center on a high plateau above the Shenandoah River. People have used this landscape—its woodlands, spring, high ridge, and river—in numerous ways for hundreds of years. The landscape first gained historical prominence during the Civil War under the ownership of Edmund Chambers, who had built a farmhouse, orchards, outbuildings, and gardens on the plateau. The property’s use in war-time battles, skirmishes, and defensive construction effectively ruined the productive farm landscape, although it was successfully rebuilt by Alexander Murphy after 1869. In 1895, the farm became the home of the former John Brown’s Fort, which was moved to the landscape after display at the World’s Columbian Exposition. Here, the former fort, a potent symbol of the abolition movement, became the focus of the Niagara Movement, a civil rights organization, during their historic conference at Harpers Ferry in 1906. The Chambers-Murphy farm thus conveys several historic themes spanning centuries of time: the prehistoric use of the landscape; its Civil War-era agricultural and residential use and military tactical importance; and the ongoing commemoration of the values and heritage of those who fought for civil rights. This CLR recommends rehabilitation for the Chambers-Murphy farm landscape. The rehabilitation approach provides a framework for the treatment of the landscape that preserves historic resources in their multilayered context. Landscape conditions at the Chambers-Murphy farm strongly evoke the site’s mid-19th to early 20th century agricultural character, over which several nationally-significant events transpired. These conditions are available for visitors to see and experience today. The landscape—its topography, woodlands, fields, views, building and structures—helps visitors understand important military events of the Civil War, the ongoing commemoration of the early civil rights movement, and aspects of historic and prehistoric life in the region. Treatment focuses on the protection of important prehistoric and historic resources and enhanced accessibility for the landscape so that visitors may continue to enjoy this important cultural landscape.

Chambers-Murphy Farm Cultural Landscape Inventory and Report

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