Tillie Pierce: Teen Eyewitness to the Battle of Gettysburg
INTRODUCTION Gettysburg a Crossroads Town LONG BEFORE WHITE SETTLERS MOVED INTO SOUTHERN PENNSYLVANIA NATIVE AMERICANS HAD WORN AN EAST WEST TRAIL THERE The path later turned into a well traveled dirt road when French and English trappers ventured into the wildlife rich Allegheny Mountains Over time another road developed This one ran north and south connecting Shippensburg Pennsylvania and Baltimore Maryland The place where these two roads crossed would one day be called Gettysburg In the 1730s and the 1740s settlers who wanted nothing of city life in Philadelphia Pennsylvania and other large towns moved to York County in south central Pennsylvania They were hardworking independent families who managed to turn the rock filled rolling hills into working farms One of those areas was known as the Marsh Creek settlement Samuel Gettys an immigrant from northern Ireland was a settler there He bought 381 acres 154 hectares of the Marsh Creek settlement as a farmstead around 1740 In 1761 he built the Gettys Inn and Tavern
near the crossroads of the town's two main roads Gettys knew that weary travelers would be glad to pay for a place to sleep eat and drink During the Revolutionary War 1775 1783 American troops found refreshment and rest at his inn In 1783 Samuel's son James bought 116 acres 47 hectares from his father James laid out a town on that parcel and named it Gettystown in honor of his father He established a central square known as the Diamond Several streets splayed out from the Diamond like the spokes of a wheel He divided the area along these streets into 120 individual lots The streets were named to show where people were traveling to or from Baltimore Street York Pike Harrisburg Road Chambersburg Pike Taneytown Road and Hagerstown Road People passed through Gettystown on their way to bigger and more exciting cities In 1800 the town's name was changed to Gettysburg and it became the county seat In a few years two colleges were established northwest of town Lutheran James Gettys founded Gettystown in the 1780s In 1800 the town's name was changed to Gettysburg This 1863 photo shows Gettysburg from Seminary Ridge
Gettysburg was known for making carriages including Conestoga wagons below Theological Seminary opened in 1826 and Pennsylvania now Gettysburg College followed in 1832 One of the main businesses in Gettysburg was carriage making The area was well known for its fine horse drawn carriages It supplied a growing nation with all kinds of vehicles including Conestoga wagons also known as prairie schooners Related businesses such as tanneries iron works and blacksmith shops sprang up Outside the busy little town farmers grew corn wheat rye and hay During the summer and fall the bounty from apple and peach orchards kept families busy making apple butter and peach preserves Some men ran still houses that produced gin rye whiskey and apple brandy TLLIE's HOMETOWN TILLIE PIERCE WAS BORN IN GETTYSBURG IN 1848 In her book At Get tysburg Or What a Girl Saw and Heard of the Battle A True Narrative she describes Gettysburg as it was before the war Prior to the battle it was comparatively unknown to the out side world save to those interested in the Lutheran Theological Seminary here located From year to year it pursued the even and quiet tenor feel of an inland town with nothing
to vary the monotony but the annual exercises of the above mentioned institutions On these occasions the influx of strangers for the short period of commencement week did add some stir and life to the place but only to have it settle into more irksome quietude dull living after the visitors and their dear boys had left At the time of Tillie's birth Gettysburg was a farm based community of about twenty four hundred people Its residents slogged through muddy streets and fields in the spring Many had picnics and picked berries in the humid summer In the fall they harvested and preserved crops During cold snowy winters they held one another close under handmade quilts and stoked fireplaces to stay warm Tillie described some of these activities too Often do I think of the lovely groves on and around Culp's Hill of the mighty boulders which there abound upon which we often spread the picnic feast of the now famous Spangler's Spring where we drank the cooling draught drink on those peaceful summer days What pleasant times were ours as we went berrying along the quiet sodded lane that leads from the town to that now memorable hill Tillie's account of her life in Gettysburg only briefly mentions these peaceful pleasant times Her story really begins in June 1863 when war was on its way to her hometown
