Some Facts about Gettysburg, My New Home

February 8, 2009

This is surprisingly difficult to do, simply because anything and everything relating to Gettysburg seems to be about the battle and the Civil War aspect. While interesting and very relevant, I kinda want to learn more about the city itself. However some of the Battle facts were pretty interesting too.

Though Gettysburg is known as a Civil War Battle site and location of President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, the town was the site of Sanuel Gettys’ farmstead. After the Revolutionary War, James Gettys, Samuel’s son, purchased a 116 acre tract from his father’s farmstead. By 1786 he had laid out 210 lots around the Square, which still remains as the center of the town.
Thus Gettysburg was born. I would probably be within this bracket of land
National Park Service is currently working on a “restoration” project in the battlefields, in which they will remove 576 acres of “non-historic trees,” re-plant 115 acres of “historic” trees, and replace 160 acres of orchards, using ornamental instead of fruit-bearing trees. They will also maintain firewood lots and thickets to appear as they did during battle.
A popular attraction held in Gettysburg is the Reenactment of the Battle of Gettysburg which is held every summer for the three days around the fourth of July. Events include cannons being fired, marching over the same grounds as the solders did, fake deaths, sleeping in tents and really reliving the life of a union or confederate soldier during the time of the war. Amongst the tours, ghost stories and reenactments there are also a variety of restaurants to choose from while visiting Gettysburg.
The land that now comprises the center of Adams County was purchased from the Iroquois Indians by the family of William Penn in 1736. At the time there was no official Gettysburg, Adams County, state of Pennsylvania or United States. Within a few years 150 families had “leap-frogged” over the English Quakers and Germans, who had settled to the east of here, to this area, then known by the name of its main tributary, Marsh Creek. Many of these settlers were Scots-Irish who had left Northern Ireland to escape English persecution.
With the first Pennsylvania Frame of Government in 1776 and the Constitution of the United States in 1787, the growing population of the area decided they wanted to separate from York County. A new county was approved by the state legislature in 1800 (the year 2000 will be our bicentennial) and was named after the President at that time, John Adams. Gettysburg was chosen as the county seat.
If you talked to a Gettysburg citizen about their recollections of the battle, they would tell you that the three days of fighting were horrifying but that that was not the worst part of the ordeal. After the battle was over, the destruction to the buildings, loss of food and crops and thousands of bloody injured crying for help busied the townspeople for months. The experience was something they never forgot.
Gettysburg’s oldest and most historic home is the Dobbin House, which also acts as a tavern in modern day.
Agriculture makes up the major portion of the economy of the area with tourism a close second. The “Adams County Fruit Belt”, along the eastern slopes of the South Mountain Range, has miles of orchards which provide great revenues for the county. Though not the largest sector of the county’s economy, manufacturing is the largest employment sector, with 40% of total nonagricultural employment
The population of Gettysburg is approximately 7,025 as of 1990
Every year, thousands of bike riders descend upon Gettysburg for Bike Week. My dad says this is a site to behold. They literally shut down the whole damn town
More than 3,000 horses were killed at the Battle of Gettysburg
There are over 830 monuments and 400 guns located at the Gettysburg Battlefield.
During the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the only civilian to die was twenty-year-old Mary Virginia “Jennie” Wade, who was shot through the heart while making bread. Congress passed an Act which allowed the flag at her grave to fly day and night. Only the graves of 2 women have such a distinction. The other is Betsy Ross.
Some idea of the tremendous work at Gettysburg may be inferred from the fact stated that more shells were discharged in the single battle of Gettysburg than were employed in all the battles that Napoleon ever fought.
Adams County is on the famous “Mason-Dixon Line” which marked the line between North and South during the Civil War.
Gettysburg was also the home of the 34th President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower. His farmhouse here was the only home he ever owned. The farm is now open to the public.
Caledonia State Park is named for an iron furnace that was owned by Thaddeus Stevens. Part of this park is in neighboring Franklin County. It is just off U.S. Route 30 between Chambersburg and Gettysburg.
2.9 million people visited Gettysburg in 2007