estled amid the Blue Ridge Mountains at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers, Harpers Ferry is the northern gateway to Virginia’s fecund Shenandoah Valley. Originally settled in 1733 as a ferry landing on the Potomac, the site on which the present-day town sits was bought by its namesake, Robert Harper, in 1751. Harper continued the lucrative ferry as settlers increasingly moved south into the valley. George Washington had business interests
