Schmucker Hall: The History Schmucker Hall (Old Dorm) has a history that predates the Battle of Gettysburg. It was from this place that Lutheran Theological Seminary founder and prominent anti‐slavery advocate Samuel Simon Schmucker helped focus national debate on slavery, served as an articulate spokesman for social justice, supported the Underground Railroad and welcomed the first African American Lutheran seminarian, Daniel Alexander Payne, to study here. From 1835 to 1837, students from north and south lived side by side in the building—the dorm—with Payne as national deliberations on slavery raged across the nation. On July 1, 1863, Seminary Ridge and Old Dorm (Schmucker Hall) stood at the center of the Union Army’s defense against the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. The Battle of Gettysburg, which remains the largest battle ever waged on the continent, had begun. Its outcome would help alter the course of the Civil War, which would end two years later with the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, Va. From Schmucker Hall’s cupola Union cavalry commander General John Buford observed Confederate forces advancing on Gettysburg from the west. Within a few hours, Seminary Ridge and the fields surrounding it became a battleground and perhaps the largest field hospital of the three‐day battle. Care for more than 600 wounded soldiers from both armies continued in the building until September 1863. In decades following the war, Schmucker Hall became a place of reconciliation. Soldiers from both sides returned to honor fallen comrades, with the largest group revisiting to observe the battle’s 50th anniversary in 1913. The Seminary marked this event by erecting a Peace Portico to commemorate the doorway through which many wounded soldiers were carried for recovery or final rest. Seminarians continued to study and live in the building until 1954 when it could not meet code for student living. Leased to the Adams County Historical Society in 1961, the facility continued to draw national attention as a unique and unparalleled crossroad in the American experience. Remaining remarkably unchanged from its original construction, it holds the distinction of being one of the most photographed surviving Civil War structures. Documents from the late 1800s reveal the building was becoming increasingly expensive to maintain and was in need of substantial repair. Some improvements were made in 1895, but by the 1950s its preservation was in doubt, even though its significance was nationally recognized when it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. On July 1, 2012, 150 years to the day after the Battle of Gettysburg began, the Gettysburg Seminary Ridge Museum will open in Schmucker Hall. The museum will focus on three areas not focused on by any other museum in Gettysburg:  the pivotal first day of the Battle of Gettysburg on Seminary Ridge  the care of the wounded and human suffering within Schmucker Hall during its use as a Civil War field hospital  the moral, civic, and spiritual debates of the Civil War era. A joint venture of the Lutheran Theological Seminary, the Adams County Historical Society and the Seminary Ridge Historic Preservation Association, the museum will offer 20,000 square feet of exhibit space and offer exclusive tours of the historic cupola used by Gen. Buford. CONTACT:
Dru Anne Neil, 717-339-1356, [email protected]