Harriet Ciata Stanton’s ties go back to the founding of Gettysburg, and her descendants were still in Gettysburg at least through the early 2000s (and may still be there!). Even a hundred years ago, the newspapers referred to the family as the oldest in Gettysburg and Harriet as one of its most notable citizens. Harriet was born into slavery in Newton (now Stevens City), Virginia, near Winchester in the northern end of the Shenandoah Valley. She never knew her birth year and could never be sure of her actual age.

During the Civil War, the family was twice sold to different masters, but in the chaos in Northern Virginia, with the area changing hands between Union and Confederate forces numerous times, the family fled to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where they started a new life in freedom. But their liberation was nearly short-lived. During the Confederate invasion of 1863, the Rebel army swung through Chambersburg; in doing so, they demanded $200,000 in tribute from the town while also scooping up black people and sending them south into slavery. The family fled ahead of the army’s arrival, but when the city failed to pay the tribute, the Confederates burned dozens of structures, including much of the Jenkins home and all their family history records. With little left, the family moved to Harrisburg and then to Gettysburg.

Harriet grew to maturity on the western side of Gettysburg. She learned to speak and read Pennsylvania Dutch, a fact her children and grandchildren would later recall from the Dutch bedtime songs she sang them.

Eventually, she was courted by and then married Samuel Matthew Stanton, the son of Greenberry Stanton and Gettys Ann O’Brien. Gettys Ann was the daughter of the first enslaved woman brought to Gettysburg by James Gettys, and hence, the Stanton family was truly the oldest family in Gettysburg (the Gettys family were all gone from the area within a generation).

Samuel was a Civil War veteran, though writers have had a difficult time tracing what regiment he served in (see his Find-a-Grave entry for more on this). Civil War Data System’s database suggests the best fit might be Samuel Stanton who mustered into the 127th USCT in October 1864 in Pennsylvania. The 127th mustered into service in Philadelphia and attracted a number of other black men from Adams County.

The Stantons were the parents of eight children, and their lives and outcomes were not easy. Their second to youngest, John David, died in 1890, the same year he was born. In 1912, Samuel was found lying dead in the street near his home, allegedly of alcoholism. He was 69. He had spent much of his life shining shoes, and he was familiar to nearly all Gettysburg residents for wandering the streets with his shoe-shining kit and soliciting business.

In 1918, the couple’s youngest, Freeman, went to war and saw severe combat. He reportedly survived without being wounded but was apparently gassed. He returned from the war, married, and had a couple of children. But he suffered ill effects from his exposure to gas, and he died at age 27. A year later, his older brother, Samuel, Jr., married Freeman’s widow because, according to Freeman’s daughter Catherine Stanton Carter, Sam said, “No son of a bitch is going to mistreat my brother’s children.”

Harriet was renowned for her work in the local AME church. She turns up in articles noting how she gathered care packages for black children who went off to summer camp. She was periodically noted for working with church relief ministries or other community organizations. When she contracted her final illness, that alone merited notice in the local paper.

Her passing spared her some of the further pain that followed her family. Sam, Jr. ran a local taproom called the Savoy, which featured a probably less-than-legal gambling side business. In 1936, two years after his mother’s death, Sam, Jr., was arrested for a barroom altercation that may have related to a gambling hustle in the pool room.

Eleven months later, tenants in an upstairs room heard a gunshot in the empty bar below. They rushed down and found Sam, Jr., shot through the head from left to right. His licensed handgun was found eighteen inches from his feet with a round missing from the clip. The medical examiner and state police ruled the death a suicide, attributing his state of mind to a stretch of poor health and personal challenges. However, a local doctor disputed the findings, saying that Sam was right handed and had been shot on the left side of his head behind his ear. Later stories claimed that he was killed by a white man over a gambling dispute.

The tragedy no doubt would have stretched the soul of Harriet who was renowned in town for her ministry and patience through adversity. Her own passing made front-page news that drew one of the longest obituaries we can find in the local papers of the day. It remains a testament to her life, all she endured, and her stream of good deeds that stretched through the ages.