The Little Drummer Boy

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.

Image above by Henry Kidd