Free previewStop 5 of Harpers Ferry Walking Tour: John Brown's Fort to Jefferson Rock
The View That Was Worth an Ocean
You've climbed up from St. Peter's onto the hillside path, and in front of you is Jefferson Rock: big, flat slabs of shale stacked one on top of another, hanging out over the Shenandoah River. Look at the uppermost slab, then look underneath it. Those four stone pillars, one at each corner, are holding it up. Keep them in mind. We'll come back to them.
On October 25, 1783, Thomas Jefferson stood on this spot. The Revolution was barely over, and he was not yet president. He was a Virginian with a restless, measuring mind, and he was working on a book about his home state called Notes on the State of Virginia. What he saw from this rock went into it, and the passage became one of the most famous pieces of American landscape writing.
That's the opening. The rest plays at stop 5 of Harpers Ferry Walking Tour: John Brown's Fort to Jefferson Rock (3 min in all). Unlock the tour to hear it all, or try stop 1 free first.
