In studies of Gettysburg, Jacob Weikert’s name surfaces almost exclusively in connection to his farm. Situated on the Taneytown Road just east of the Round Tops, the 102-acre farm became the campsite and field hospital of both the Union Thirds Corps and Fifth Corps. Accordingly, the farm saw anywhere between seven hundred and one thousand wounded men—far more than nearly every other dwelling in Gettysburg except for a small handful of similar farms (e.g., the farms of John Edward Plank, George Bushman, and Michael Bushman)—and hundreds of temporary burials (Union soldiers were later moved to the national cemetery, and Southern soldiers were eventually shipped South). Further, the farm was the site where bodies of some of the more notable soldiers from the battle were brought, including General Stephen Weed, Colonel Patrick O’Rorke, and Lieutenant Charles Hazlett. The farm also had eleven surgeons work there, eight of which fell ill as a result of the diseases that ran through the hospital. And the farm also saw well-known nurses and helpers like Mary “French Mary” Tepe whose eye-catching Zouave outfits and tote of whiskey for sale made her the talk of various post-battle hospitals.

But these incidents tell us almost nothing of Jacob Weikert and his family. So who was Jacob Weikert? First, while the literature everywhere refers to him as Jacob, his full name was actually John Jacob Weikert. And the farm for which he was so famous? He was the third generation to live on the land and own part of it.

Jacob’s grandfather was known in America as John Andrew Weikert . . . in his native Germany, evidence suggests he was Hans Dries Weikert. Why the name change? Allegedly, he may have owed taxes that he was unable to pay, and he may have left Wertheim to avoid the authorities. He eventually arrived in Philadelphia, and years later, he purchased more than two hundred acres in Adams County . . . a portion of which became the Jacob Weikert farm.

Both John Andrew and his son George were part of the York, PA, militia who guarded more than one thousand British prisoners at Camp Security during the American Revolution. John had a sizable family—six children—and George exceeded his father with ten children by his first wife and four more by his second. John Jacob Weikert was the eighth of the ten. George purchased the farm from John Andrew, then added another hundred acres to it.

Jacob served in the War of 1812 in Cobean’s Battalion, though little record is given of what the battalion did. Jacob would have a similarly large family, fathering thirteen children by his wife Sarah Ikes. According to his family, he was a carpenter by trade, though his principle livelihood appeared to be his farm. He was handy with mechanical things and careful with his property and money. When it was clear that the battle was coming to the farm, Jacob, fearing that the soldiers would use so much well water they would run it dry, took the hand crank from the well and hid it. Lieutenant Ziba Graham of the 16th Michigan eventually persuaded Jacob to hand it over—at the point of a rifle barrel.

Another well-known story from the suffering on the farm involved a drummer boy breathing his last in the arms of Mrs. Judge Fisher from York, PA. Jacob later found the boy’s broken drum and turned it into a beehive that he used for the next fifteen years until his death. (Abraham Plank similarly discovered the hand-carved cane of a Confederate soldier on his farm.)

Few records tell us what happened to Jacob between the battle and his passing. His wife preceded him in death by about a year, and a month later, Jacob announced his retirement from farming by posting ads in the local newspapers to sell most of his farming equipment and animals.

And while the ad indicates he put his farm up for sale, it doesn’t seem that he sold it before his passing. According to his grandson, Jacob was walking through one of the apple orchards he had nurtured over the years when he was struck down by a stroke, which claimed his life on his family’s land.