About The Town
The town of Gettysburg was laid out in the late 1700's by James Gettys, who purchased this land from part of his father's property. The lots he assigned in the years before 1786 soon grew into the bustling town it was by July 1863.
Gettysburg may have been relatively small, but it had something special to offer: The Lutheran Theological Seminary was established in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, and Gettysburg College. The town also had shops, a bank, and all of the required 1800's amenities. Gettysburg was renouned for its carriage business, and one of the local citizens had a carriage-trim shop right in his home. Over two-thousand people made up this small but important community.
Rumor dictates that Gettysburg was brought under siege by Confederate soldiers first marching into town because the rebels were in search of shoes; the southerners had heard that a vast quantity of shoes could be found nearby. This bears evidence to the region of Gettysburg's superiority in mercantile goods.
Gettysburg has always been one of my favorite places, and even with the tainted history of such suffering and carnage, one cannot help but feel a certain calm in the air. From walking the infamous and ill-fated "Pickett's Charge" to imagining the bravery of Little Round Top, the entire area is filled with history.
