Walkabout

On a luscious early spring day recently, Dr. Watson packed along his trusty service revolver and, defying the pain from wounds suffered in the Afghan campaign, accompanied me on a substantial History Hike over Short Hill on Egg Path, down to the site of John Mobberly's house at the other end of that venerable thoroughfare, and back around the end of Short Hill by the old Around the Points Road that connected Lovettsville and Harpers Ferry.

It was about as nice a hike as I've ever had, is all.

Here's the magic-lantern show...

We discovered yet another house-relic, this one about 300 yards from the ruin I found a couple of weeks ago:



Now I understand why you can see Egg Path from so far away after it snows: A Power Line Runs Through It:



Here's where you should just shut up and let the picture speak for itself. Come up and over the top of Short Hill, this is what you see:



Up the valley. That's the Potomac cleaving those hills. Mobberly's house stood somewhere in the lower right quadrant.



Down now in Turneysville, the end of Egg Path. John Mobberly's homestead stood somewhere to the left. The house visible may or may not be the home of Jim Riley, one of Mobberly's henchman. Riley survived the war, escaped prosecution despite the $1000 reward placed on his head during the war, and became the operator of the ferry across the Shenandoah into Harpers Ferry. He lived until 1918.

Shortly before I took this picture, a magnificent red fox zoomed across this view, from right to left. We didn't think he was symbolic at all. Oh, no.



Be a deer and hold my skulls, won't you?



Harpers Ferry. The Tri-State Area. Virginia on the left, West By God Virginia center, Maryland right. John Brown dead center, a-molderin' in the mud.



Finally, a bald eagle's nest overhanging the Potomac bank. Madame Eagle's head is just barely visible. The man of the house had just scarpered magnificently. A national symbol has no need to be photographed, thanks very much.



Up Next on the Mobberly Trail: Who's Your Daddy?