The A Moving Symbol wayside marker is on the Murphy Farm south of Harpers Ferry. It is at the end of the Murphy’s Farm Trail about 750 yards south of the trailhead parking area on Murphy Road. (39°18’28.1″N 77°45’42.6″W; map) It is next to the wayside markers Holy Ground and Pilgrimage.

From the marker:

A Moving Symbol

In it really began the Civil War.
Here was lighted the torch of liberty for all America…
For you this is the most hallowed shrine in this country.

Henry McDonald,
Storer College president

The foundations in front of you mark a temporary site of John Brown’s Fort, from 1895 to 1909. Originally located in Harpers Ferry, the fort was moved four times in 75 years. Entrepreneurs dismantled it and then rebuilt it on location at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. After the exhibition, journalist Kate Field saved the fort from demolition by raising the funds to move it here to Murphy Farm. In 1901 Storer College President Henry McDonald brought the fort to the college’s Harpers Ferry campus. After the closing of Storer College the National Park Service returned the fort near its original location in Harpers Ferry (lower town), where it stands today.

Photo captions from uper right:

Original location of fort in Harpers Ferry (lower town 1865).

Moved to Storer College Campus, Harpers Ferry (Camp Hill) in 1909.

Returned to Harpers Ferry (lower town) in 1968.

Alexander Murphy, for the sum of one dollar, donated five acres of his farm to Kate Field (left) to reconstruct and preserve the John Brown Fort in 1895. It stood here at the farm (main photo) until 1910. Murphy permitted the public to visit the fort without charge.

(go to the main Murphy Farm page)
(go to the main Tour the Harpers Ferry Battlefield page)