CWPT Completes Purchase Of Schoolhouse Ridge At Harpers Ferry
By Deborah Fitts
December 2002

HARPERS FERRY, W.Va. - A $300,000 federal transportation-enhancement grant will supply virtually the last piece of the funding puzzle in a six-month campaign by the Civil War
Preservation Trust to save a key portion of the Harpers Ferry battlefield.

The Trust announced reception of the grant at an Oct. 30 press conference in Harpers Ferry. The money will be added to other funding already secured to complete a $1.7 million deal to buy 232 acres on historic Schoolhouse Ridge.

" We're very pleased," said Trust spokesman Jim Campi. "We started this [campaign] in April and before the end of this year we'll be able to sign off on it."

The farmland tract, formerly owned by the late Dixie Kilham, was the site of a Confederate attack under Stonewall Jackson that brought a victorious conclusion to the Southerners' siege of the federal garrison at Harpers Ferry. The ensuing surrender of 12,000 Union troops on Sept. 15, 1862, was one of the largest surrenders of U.S. forces in history.

According to Campi, Trust members supplied over $200,000 toward the campaign, matching $500,000 from the federal American Battlefield Protection Program. The National Park Service supplied another $400,000. And with other donations and funds from the sale several years ago of Civil War commemorative coins, "We're there," Campi said. "There's only a handful of dollars left to go."

Campi hailed the support of West Virginia Del. John Doyle (D-Shepherdstown) and the state's governor, Bob Wise. He also cited as crucial the support of the National Parks Conservation Association, as well as several local individuals and preservation organizations.

The purchase will be completed in December, according to Campi. The Trust plans eventually to turn the property over to Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, but first Congress will have to approve an increase in the acreage "ceiling" that is currently restricting park expansion (see related story). Congressional action is ultimately expected.

The property was the site of "Harpers Ferry Caverns," an underground tourist attraction with a campground that was active in the 1960s and '70s, but it has not been built on. It is across Bakerton Road from 56 acres that the for-mer Civil War Trust (a predecessor of the Civil War Preservation Trust) purchased in 1995 and donated to the park. That purchase, on the back side of Bolivar Heights, comprised the Union skirmish line. Until now the Confederate line has been unprotected.