Publications

In partnership with the National Park Service and notable journalists, scholars, and historians, HFPA has published several titles relating to Harpers Ferry and its history.

A Walker's Guide to Harpers Ferry West VirginiaA Walker's Guide to Harpers Ferry West Virginia
David T. Gilbert
 
A comprehensive guidebook to walking tours of Lower Town Harpers Ferry, Virginus Island, Maryland Heights, Loudoun Heights, and much more including detailed maps & index. Revised September 2016, the eighth edition includes map elevations and updates to the Bolivar Heights and Loudon Heights walks.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Dennis E. Frye

Harpers Ferry experienced the Civil War like no other place and was a case study of repeated invasions, military operations, martial law, and endless danger. Journey into the Civil War with stories from those who lived, worked, fought, and died in a border town. This narrative is complemented by full color and black-and-white illustrations, photographs, and maps. Paperback, 200 pages.
 
Author Dennis E. Frye is the Chief Historian at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. He is a writer, lecturer, guide, preservationist, and prominent Civil War historian. A well-know author, Dennis has written 77 articles and six books.
 
Harpers Ferry experienced the Civil War like no other place and was a case study of repeated invasions, military operations, martial law, and endless danger. Journey into the Civil War with stories from those who lived, worked, fought, and died in a border town. This narrative is complemented by full color and black-and-white illustrations, photographs, and maps. Paperback, 200 pages. Dennis E. Frye is the Chief Historian at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. Writer, lecturer, guide, and preservationist, Dennis is a prominent Civil War historian. Dennis has numerous appearances on PBS, The History Channel, The Discovery Channel, and A&E as a guest historian, and he helped produce award-winning television features on the Battle of Antietam and abolitionist John Brown. Dennis served as an Associate Producer for the Civil War movie Gods and Generals, during which he recruited and coordinated nearly 3,000 re-enactors for the film. Dennis also is one of the nation's leading Civil War battlefield preservationists. He is co-founder and first president of the Save Historic Antietam Foundation, and he is co-founder and a former president of today's Civil War Preservation Trust, where he helped save battlefields in twelve states. Dennis is a tour guide in demand, leading tours for organizations such as the Smithsonian, National Geographic, numerous colleges and universities, and Civil War Round Tables.

Dennis Frye, Catherine Magi Oliver

One place. Countless stories. Harpers Ferry has long been a gathering point of the American story. From explorers and innovators to warriors and reformers, passionate souls with wildly diverse causes have flowed again and again into this tiny village, shaping the town--and, in many cases, the country.
 
Focusing on personal, human experiences recorded in journals, letters, and other documents, Confluence: Harpers Ferry as Destiny offers a view of Harpers Ferry history that is both sweeping and intimate. Come: Discover the national dramas that have converged at Harpers Ferry. Slavery and the quest for freedom. War, expansion, and revolution. Natural disaster upon natural disaster, and the enduring human spirit that has refused to relinquish hope.
 
Published in honor of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park’s 75th anniversary, Confluence also includes perspective on the rebirth of this war- and flood-ravaged town as a national park. Under the stewardship of NPS, Harpers Ferry has continued to evolve, continued to reveal new stories. Paperback, 225 pages.
 
 
 
 
 
National Park Service
 
Revised in 2017, this handbook contains the day-by-day narration of Brown’s insurrection, those who were involved, details of the trial, and what happened to John Brown and his men after the raid. Published on the 150th anniversary of the raid, more than a hundred photographs, maps and historic images chronicle the account. Includes suggested reading.  Paperback, 111 pages.








 
 

Thomas F. Hahn

The classic, must-have guidebook to the C&O Canal is back! With new photos and research, updated maps, and a 21st century makeover, Thomas Hahn’s labor of love remains the most comprehensive mile-by-mile guide to the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal. Journey 184.5 miles past former wharfs and foundries on the Georgetown waterfront, through quant Potomac River towns, to the mountainous region of western Maryland, while exploring all of the canal locks, lockhouses, aqueducts, and culverts along the way. Read how raging floodwaters and Civil War armies wreaked havoc on canal structures. Discover nature, geology, and 19th century engineering feats, as well as stories of the laborers, locktenders, and canallers who made the C&O a monument to human ingenuity and endurance. Deftly balancing engineering details with colorful anecdote and lore, Hahn’s guidebook is the go-to resource for all things C&O. Paperback, 276 pages.






 

Various Authors

When John Brown came to Harpers Ferry in 1859, organizing a school for enslaved African Americans was illegal. Eight years later, after a bloody Civil War, Storer College did just that—and more. To honor the 150th anniversary of the school’s founding, Harpers Ferry Park Association, in partnership with Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, invited park rangers, professors, journalists, and scholars to tell the stories of the teachers, students, and reformers who strove to manifest a new world on the “hill of hope.” This collection reveals tales of courage and conviction, success and defeat, controversy and, above all, hope. Paperback, 176 pages.








 
 

David T. Gilbert

Read about Hall’s Rifle Works, the U.S. Armory and the mills on Virginius Island. Learn about the machines and equipment in these factories and meet the men and entrepreneurs who ran them. Find out more about the devastation of flooding and unpredictable streamflow that plagued local industry. Many historic photographs and detailed line drawings of machines compliment the text. Paperback, 192 pages.

 

Various Contributions

A collection of recipes influenced by the confluence! Take a journey back into time with your tastebuds from the late 18th century to present day! Enjoy images of Harpers Ferry past, colorful quotes, and amusing anecdotes. Filled with both historical and modern recipes, Harpers Ferry Bill of Fare will satisfy any appetite for food or nostalgia. Spiral bound, paperback 92 pages.





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Published by the Harpers Ferry Park Association in memory of David L. Larsen, Interpreter

The diaries, letters and memoirs of the civilians and soldiers who experienced the war in Harpers Ferry have provided park interpreters an invaluable tool for transporting park visitors to the past. Here are 24 stories written by 17 interpreters, volunteers, rangers and interns that recreate six harrowing years of a town under attack. Paperback, 118 pages.


 






 
 
Garnet W. Jex

Derived from a 1965 Publication of the District of Columbia Civil War Centennial Commission.
 
Today, the Upper Potomac Valley boasts an idyllic landscape where an indomitable river winds through quaint historic towns, rolling farmlands, and mountain vistas. Between 1859 and 1865, this was a scene of war. Battles, skirmishes, daring raids, and dangerous escapes rattled the usually peaceful region. Great armies, blue and gray, crossed the Potomac River numerous times as war shifted back and forth over this natural boundary that separated the North and South.
 
One hundred years later, Washington, D.C. artist Garnet W. Jex combined his love of history and natural beauty to interpret these events in a stunning collection of fifty-one opaque watercolor paintings. The paintings are presented here in full color to commemorate the Civil War Sesquicentennial and to reveal in vivid detail the dramatic events that unfolded along the banks of the mighty river. Paperback, 56 pages