The first muskets, based on the old French infantry type of 1763, were completed in 1801. In 1803 production was expanded to include rifles, and 2 years later the manufacture of pistols. (The Model 1805 pistol, made at Harpers Ferry, was the first hand weapon to be produced at a United States armory.) At first the rate of musket production was meager, but by 1810 the armory was turning out 10,000 annually, storing them in two arsenal buildings nearby on Shenandoah Street. In 1819 John Hall, a Maine gunsmith, received a contract from the Federal Government to manufacture 1,000 breech-loading flintlock rifles of his own design. Sent to Harpers Ferry, he set up the Hall Rifle Works in two buildings on Lower Hall Island, which adjoined Virginius Island in the Shenandoah River about ½ mile from its junction with the Potomac. Hall’s rifles were made on so exact a scale that all the parts were interchangeable—a factor that helped to pave the way for modern mass production methods. The War Department was elated with Hall’s success and his contract was repeatedly renewed. When the Hall rifle was discontinued in 1844, the Government tore down the old buildings and erected a new rifle factory on the same site. Standard U.S. Model rifles were produced there until the industry was destroyed, along with the armory complex, at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. The abundance of water power that had attracted the arms industry soon brought others. Besides the rifle factories on Hall Island, Virginius Island boasted an iron foundry, flour mill, cotton mill, and machine shop, all powered by water diverted through the island by a dam in the Shenandoah River and a series of sluiceways and underground water tunnels. More than 200 persons made their home around the prospering island industries. The formation, development, and expansion of the United States Armory and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry (its complete, official designation) was the chief stimulus for the growth of the town. From a simple beginning the armory by 1859 had spread to include 20 workshops and offices, lined in a neat double row over an area 600 yards long. At its peak, the armory provided employment for more than 400 men, mostly transplanted Northerners whom local residents classified as “foreigners.” In the 65-year history of this major industry, the U.S. Government invested nearly $2 million in land, water power improvements, walls and embankments, hydraulic machinery, and buildings. [Illustration: HARPERS FERRY AND VICINITY 1859]