Gettysburg Licensed Town Guides

01/05/2025

How cool is this?!

12/21/2024

12/08/2024

Main Street Gettysburg 's Christmas Festival was so much fun! 🌲🎅🤶🌲Thank you to the sponsors and volunteers for a wonderful event! Here's a few photos of the ice sculptures on Baltimore St. that were snapped between our tours yesterday.

12/06/2024

For all those taking the Licensed Battlefield Guide exam tomorrow: You've prepped, studied and walked the battlefield for hours examining every cannon, position and terrain. You've formed study groups, written practice essays and memorized the Order of Battle. You've read secondary sources, delved into primary sources and took notes and made outlines. You have done all this and more. Know that you are ready. We wish you success tomorrow.

12/05/2024

Main Street Gettysburg's Christmas Festival is this Saturday, December 7. Many events are planned throughout the day, including a presentation sponsored by the Gettysburg Foundation at 11:00 a.m. in the courtyard at the Children of 1863 Museum. The presentation is free and features Gettysburg Licensed Town Guide Ted Hirt and author Stephen Evangelista.

Despite the deprivations of war, this special time of year was still celebrated in the Civil War army and on the Homefront. Ted and Stephen will discuss how Christmas was celebrated throughout the country and in Gettysburg by both citizens and the members of Battery B 1st Rhode Island Light Artillery. Hear readings of the heartfelt letters soldiers wrote to family at home, sing holiday carols sung by the fireside and hold some of the items that soldiers would have received in packages from their loved ones. This program includes period holiday music by Nick Evangelista.

11/22/2024

Many thanks to all who toured with us this year...and years past. This year marked our 20th anniversary of providing historic walking tours of town and we are looking forward to our 21st season starting in April 2025. Tours are available from December 2024 through March 2025 and can be scheduled by visiting https://www.gbltg.com or calling 717-253-5737. Tours can also be scheduled through Viatour and GetYourGuide.

11/19/2024

Today marks the 161st anniversary of the dedication of the Soldiers National Cemetery in Gettysburg, on November 19, 1863. On that date, President Lincoln delivered his famed Gettysburg Address, reminding a weary nation that the victory at Gettysburg was part of a broader war to secure freedom and democracy for all.

100 years after Lincoln's famed speech, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the former President of the United States, was the keynote speaker for the centennial commemoration of the Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1963. Eisenhower used his remarks to highlight the same message which Lincoln gave a century before, noting:

"We read Lincoln’s sentiments, we ponder his words - the beauty of the sentiments he expressed enthralls us; the majesty of his words holds us spellbound - but we have not paid to his message its just tribute until we - ourselves - live it. For well he knew that to live for country is a duty, as demanding as is the readiness to die for it. So long as this truth remains our guiding light, self-government in this nation will never die."

"True to democracy’s basic principle that all are created equal and endowed by the Creator with priceless human rights, the good citizen now, as always before, is called upon to defend the rights of others as he does his own; to subordinate self to the country’s good; to refuse to take the easy way today that may invite national disaster tomorrow; to accept the truth that the work still to be done awaits his doing."

(Eisenhower NHS Image: General Eisenhower stands on a podium, surrounded by seated dignitaries, facing a large crowd seated in front of him)

11/18/2024

Gettysburg Remembrance Day Parade and spectators. Thank you to all for a wonderful parade. We saw five Lincolns, three Lees and two Grants.

📷: rmzajko

11/18/2024

Gettysburg Licensed Town Guide Ted Hirt (right), a member of Battery B of the 1st Rhode Island Light Artillery, marches in the 2024 Remembrance Day Parade.

11/17/2024

Remembrance Day pre-parade shots. The weather was perfect and so was the parade.

📷: rmzajko

11/12/2024

So cool! We can't wait to hear about the project! We're excited!

Here's more information on Basil Biggs.

https://witf.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/fyr14.socst.us.basil/basil-biggs-true-american-hero/?fbclid=IwY2xjawGfolBleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHXZSChAmRimcY3wf6taDQcFPBBl0_FPXV5nbtcbyQSmuDUMomP-iy84OzQ_aem_siXxjm46H1MQbNj49-P5Pg

We recently hosted award-winning actress, professor, and playwright Anna Deavere Smith, who is a direct descendant of famous Gettysburg citizen Basil Biggs. Anna is working with us on an exciting project that will be announced at a later date... stay tuned for more!

11/08/2024

From our friends Seminary Ridge Museum and Education Center

The Lutheran Seminary opened classes at the building that now houses Seminary Ridge Museum and Education Center (SRMEC) 192 years ago this week, on November 7, 1832. Three years later, in 1835, the institution welcomed its first Black student: Daniel Alexander Payne. Following his two-year tenure in Gettysburg, the free-born Payne, a native South Carolinian, ultimately earned the distinction of having been the first African American ever ordained by the General Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.

In one of ten custom pieces featured as murals at SRMEC, nationally renowned painter Dale Gallon (Gallon Historical Art) depicted the Rev. Dr. Samuel Simon Schmucker, the Seminary’s founder and first president, welcoming Payne to the campus.

The Rev. Dr. Payne went on to a distinguished theological and administrative career as one of the founders of Wilberforce College, and its eventual president—the first Black chief executive at any institution of higher learning in United States history. He served as an eminent figure in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, and as a missionary to support freed people after the Civil War. Payne died in 1893 at age 82.

This location is one of 11 stops on the new Gettysburg Black History Trail! Sign up for your free digital history passport at BlackHistoryTrail.com to begin the self-guided experience.

10/31/2024

One of the bennies of evening tours in October and November are the sunsets after the tour. November evening tours will begin at 4:00 p,m. Take a tour. See a sunset.

📷: rmzajko

10/30/2024

Halloween 1891: Throwing corn is OK 👍but no door pounding.👎 And it looks like only boys get to have fun 🤔😉

Our History Mystery tour daily special ends tomorrow but our weekly Mystery Tour will continue through November. See our website at https://www.gbltg.com or call 717-253-5737 for more information.

Source: New Oxford Item, Friday, October 30, 1891. Thanks to guide Ted Hirt for this clipping.

10/23/2024

Treat yourself to our Mystery Tour beginning on October 25 through October 31. This one hour walking tour delves into an unsolved murder, mayhem and mysteries that are part of Gettysburg's history. We do not expect any ghostly encounters on this tour; we will talk about history mysteries that have yet to be solved.

For more information or to schedule a tour see our website at https://www.gbltg.com or call 717-253-5737