Preservation and Discovery along the Shenandoah Canal at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in 1983 and 1984. Draft.
Mueller JW, Fischler B, Winter Frye S. 1987. Preservation and Discovery along the Shenandoah Canal at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in 1983 and 1984. Draft.
The Shenandoah Canal was direct result of President Washington's personal efforts to make the Federal City (i.e. Washington D.C.) a commercial and political center of the fledgling nation by developing the Potomac Valley as transportation and manufacturing corridor to bind the Northwest Territories with the coastal States. The first settlement on Virginius Island, incorporated as town in 1827 (24 years before the incorporation of the Town of Harpers Ferry) developed as result of the Canal and of the available water power on the Shenandoah River. Virginius was literally and figuratively an island of private sector entrepreneurism in a federalist sea of government-sponsored manufacturing at the U.S. Armory and at Halls Rifle Works. Many owners of Virginius Island property were part of the 'junto" that governed the nearby armory and arsenal at Harpers Ferry.