The Strange Story of Harper's Ferry, with Legends of the Surrounding CountryBarry, Joseph
History
The Strange Story of Harper's Ferry, with Legends of the Surrounding Country
Barry, Joseph
Harpers Ferry (W. Va.) -- History; Harpers Ferry (W. Va.) -- History -- John Brown's Raid, 1859
Besides the parties above named, Harper's Ferry has furnished many other
eminent men to the West. Some sixty-five years ago, Captain Jacamiah
Seaman, who had resigned his position as captain in the company
stationed at Harper's Ferry, moved to Sullivan county, Missouri. He took
with him a youth to whom he had taken a fancy. The young man was named
Robert W. Daugherty and he had been left by his dying parents in care of
Mr. Martin Grace and his wife, nee O'Byrne. This lady's brother, Mr.
Terence O'Byrne, will figure further on in this history as one of John
Brown's prisoners at the time of that fanatic's famous raid. Young
Daugherty had the consent of his guardians to accompany Captain Seaman,
who was a man of very high standing at the place, and whose
family--originally of Welsh descent--were always held in the greatest
esteem in Virginia. Young Daugherty was a scion of the very warlike and
singularly successful clan of O'Daugherty, who, from time immemorial,
dwelt in the valleys of romantic Inishowen, in the county of Donegal,
Ireland, and who distinguished themselves particularly, in the
sanguinary battles of Benburb and Yellow Ford, fought in the 16th
century, to the utter destruction, by the Irish clans of two powerful
English armies. The name still flourishes in their native country, but
alas, like many others, they =will= drop the O before their name,
regardless of the loss of euphony, and the memory of the many glories
their fathers achieved under the venerable old name. Robert's father was
James Daugherty, a man of great force of character and executive
ability. He was born in Donegal about the end of the 18th century and
died young, of the cholera epidemic at Harper's Ferry, in 1831-1832,
leaving several children. He and his wife who, also died young, are
buried, side by side, in the cemetery attached to Saint John's Catholic
church, Frederick, Maryland, of which they were devoted members. Their
children were put under strict Christian guardianship, and those of them
who lived to maturity married into some of the best families of Virginia
and Maryland. Mary Jane, a highly educated lady, married Hugh Gifford,
of Baltimore. John died, we believe, unmarried, at Memphis, Tennessee,
aged 22 years. Catherine Anne, the third child, died in the Orphans'
House of the Catholic church in Baltimore aged 14 years. Elizabeth
Ellen, the youngest child, married James Wall Keenan, of Winchester,
Virginia, a brave confederate soldier, whose sister, Catherine, married
Charles B. Rouse, the Merchant Prince and gallant soldier of New York.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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