Harpers Ferry

Or Harper's Ferry

[hahr-perz]

noun

1. a town in NE West Virginia at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers: site of John Brown's raid 1859.

Harper's Ferry

/ ˈhɑːpəz /

noun

1. a village in NE West Virginia, at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers: site of an arsenal seized by John Brown (1859). Pop: 302 (2003 est)

Harpers Ferry

1. The place now in West Virginia where the militant abolitionist John Brown was captured in 1859, after he seized a federal arsenal there.

Example Sentences

Owen moved to Pasadena in the 1880s and was greeted by locals as a hero for fighting alongside his father in the Bleeding Kansas wars and Harper’s Ferry raid.

From Los Angeles Times

He stayed behind to guard weapons and horses while his father led the raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859, which resulted in the deaths of two of Owen’s brothers and in John’s capture and execution.

From Los Angeles Times

Mocking disabled people isn't the Harper's Ferry revolt.

From Salon

The act provoked John Brown to attack the federal garrison at Harper’s Ferry, Va. It led to the Dred Scott decision of 1857, widely regarded as the worst Supreme Court decision ever, in which Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote for a 7-2 majority that slaves and their descendants could not claim U.S. citizenship, nor did they have any “rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

From Los Angeles Times

An enslaved Black man frees himself and later fights alongside abolitionist John Brown at Harper’s Ferry in the 2020 historical drama “Emperor.”

From Los Angeles Times