THE hallowed notes of church chimes awakened us on our first morning in Shepherdstown and before the day was an hour older we felt grateful to the motor for compelling our stop-over in this quaint community. Geographically Shepherdstown is in West Virginia, but politically, socially and traditionally it leans toward the Old Dominion. It lies in Jefferson county at the foot of the beautiful Shenandoah valley and is essentially southern. Its whole atmosphere and the sympathy of its people belong distinctly to Piedmont Virginia. It is the Alsace-Lorraine of America.
Next to Alexandria, Shepherdstown is perhaps the oldest important settlement in the Potomac valley. It is one of the few old towns in the country that has not been defaced by too much present day progress. Shepherdstown has always been a substantial prosperous place and does not affect the gewgaws of the new rich municipality. In some respects it resembles Concord, Massachusetts. Its streets have many features in common with the thoroughfares of the old-time New England towns. In many of the residences are preserved some of the most striking characteristics of chaste colonial architecture.
It was a restful place to spend Sunday and in the evening we joined the villagers in a stroll through the shady streets and out on the bluff overlooking the Potomac. Here on the edge of the cliffs on a natural base of limestone rock is an imposing shaft lately erected to the memory of James Rumsey, Shepherdstown pioneer and inventor of the steamboat. Rumsey, you know, was the Langley of steam navigation. While Prof. Langley originated the idea of the heavier than air system of aeronautic transportation, his aeroplane, upon which experiments were made on this same Potomac river, was not perfected to the point of standing the practical test. Two bicycle mechanics in Dayton, Ohio, were destined to make a crowning achievement where the scientist had failed. Posterity will demand that the Wright brothers share their fame with Langley.
Antietam Battlefield at Dunker Church (right) and Cornfield (left) Across Hagerstown Pike
Although Robert Fulton is popularly credited with the invention of the steamboat, he only perfected the work which was started by Rumsey in the waters of the Potomac at Shepherdstown in September, 1784. In the presence of George Washington a boat which ascended the stream by mechanical appliances was exhibited by Rumsey 23 years before Fulton's Clermont made its memorable voyage on the Hudson.
The house in which Rumsey lived is one of the historic landmarks of Shepherdstown. The inventor went to Europe and built a new boat which made a successful trip on the Thames in December, 1792. A few weeks later sudden death in the very prime of life cut short Rumsey's career.
In the Civil War Shepherdstown endured the agony but shared little of the glory of battle. It is about eight miles north of Harper's Ferry and less than four miles west of Antietam. Skirmishes took place here early in the war and in September, 1862, it saw Stonewall Jackson's famous foot cavalry sprint through this corner of Jefferson county in his encircling movement for the capture of Harper's Ferry. A week later echoes of the guns engaged in the bloody work at Antietam reverberated against the hills around Shepherdstown and on the afternoon of that 17th day of September hundreds of mutilated men were carried into the village and committed to the care of the townspeople.
The wounded were Confederate soldiers and from the majority of homes in Shepherdstown had gone fathers, sons, brothers to fight under Lee or Jackson. Marie Blunt, one of the heroic women who assisted caring for the wounded, in describing that melancholy day, said:
"We went about our work with pale faces and trembling hands, yet trying to appear composed for the sake of our patients, who were much excited. We could hear the incessant explosions of artillery, the shrieking whistling of the shells, and the sharper, deadlier, more thrilling roll of musketry: while every now and then the echo of some charging cheer would come, borne by the wind, and as the human voice pierced that demoniacal clangor we would catch our breath and listen, and try not to sob, and turn back to forlorn hospitals, to the suffering at our feet and before our eyes, while imagination fainted at the thought of those other scenes hidden from us beyond the Potomac.