The Roots of the American System

Black walnuts littering the path along the Shenandoah, with ruins of some of the old flour, cotton, lumber, iron, tannery, barrel, carriage and gun-making mills and factories that once populated Virginius and Hall Islands at Harpers Ferry.  

All of these mills and factories were water powered, and it was here, at the John Hancock Hall gun works that interchangeable parts first became a norm — an idea called “the American system” and which transformed the global manufacturing of clocks, shoes, wagons, bicycles, and cars.

The industries on Virginius and Halls Islands were destroyed first by the Civil War and then by a series of horrific floods.  Today, all that remains are some old water works, flume tunnels, and foundations.