A.K.A - The Secret Six Tavern, The Townhouse

JF-0063-0015

188-192 High Street

Duplex. Brick exterior, metal roof, and rubble stone foundation. Two and a half stories, six front bays. The low pitched end gable roof abuts a n exterior chimney. Six ranked bays feature 6/6 double hung sash windows. Four gable roofed dormers also contain 6/6 double hung sash windows. Oriel display window on the left side of the facade. Windows feature wooden surrounds and stone sills. A trans om accents the front entry which has a stone threshold. There is an exposed basement in the rear. Wager Lot 30 was occupied in 1859 by dressmaker Anna McDonald, and Wager Lot 31 was occupied by armorer John Yantis.

Circa 1840

Located in the heart of Harper's Ferry, the Town House, as it is called, was once used as quarters for Union soldiers. Among the ranks of the soldiers lived a young Confederate drummer boy that had been captured. Fearing that the young child would never survive being sent off to a prison, the Union troops adopted him as their mascot...and personal slave.

The young boy was ordered to do all the chores, and to basically serve the Union soldiers as if he were their slave. Eventually, the constant badgering of the boy left him broken and depressed. He began to weep constantly and beg for his mother.

One night, the soldiers had been drinking, and the young boy's crying and begging began to irk them even more than usual. As a game, they picked the boy up, and began taunting him, as they literally threw him from person to person. One soldier missed the boy as he was tossed to him, and out the window the boy flew, where he crashed to the ground several stories below, hitting his head on a rock and dying instantly.

Visitors and employees to this day have heard strange sounds in and around the building: the whimpering cry of a young boy begging for his mother.