Tag: Gettysburg Women’s History
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Remembering Sarah Plank: A Civil War Nurse
When Sarah Plank finally passed away in 1926, she was eighty-five and had outlived her husband, John Edward Plank, and three of her twelve children. With that in mind, take some time to consider her obituary. Consider what takes up the most real estate on the page and what is absent. At the time of…
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Uncovering the Life of Maggie Palm: A Gettysburg Hero
When you begin to search out the history of black citizens in Gettysburg, you inevitably come to Basil Biggs and then to Maggie Palm. In the pre-war and war years, residents often called her Maggie Blue Coat for the blue military uniform coat she wore while helping runaways on the Underground Railroad. You will certainly…
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Henrietta “Hettie” Weikert Saw It All
Henrietta Weikert seems to have left home as soon as she could. At age 18, she married George Washington Shriver who, like her, came from a farming family in Adams County. In the case of Hettie (as she was called), she was the sixth of thirteen children living on a farm east of Little Round…
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Caroline and Louisa, The Fahnestock Sisters
The Fahnestock sisters, Louisa and Caroline, made up two of the five children born to Samuel and Susan Fahnestock that lived to adulthood. The daughters came first, sandwiched around a brother who passed away in infancy. What we know of their lives is limited to what can be traced in public records, and those are…
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The Legal Cases of Catherine Payne
For Catherine Payne and her family, three different legal cases emerged. In Virginia, after being taken to the county prison and with the support of Mary Maddox and local Quakers, Catherine Payne filed a suit for damages against Samuel Maddox for kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment. Likewise, Samuel Maddox sought to have the manumission of the…
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Catherine Payne and Her Family’s Escape from Samuel Maddox
In the predawn hours of July 24, 1845, a group of slave catchers composed of six white men and a black man burst into the room where Catherine “Kitty” Payne and her three children were sleeping. At gunpoint, the men violently loaded Catherine and children into a wagon and made for the Mason-Dixon line about…
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The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 and the 1845 Kidnapping of Catherine Payne
In the predawn hours of July 24, 1845, and under the guise of protections guaranteed by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, a group of slave catchers composed of six white men and a black man burst into the room where Catherine Payne and her three children were sleeping. At gunpoint, the men violently loaded…
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The Underground Railroad and William and Phebe Wright
When Catherine “Kitty” Payne first arrived in northern Adams County, she was almost certainly assisted by William and Phebe Wright, prominent members of the Quaker faith and agents on the Underground Railroad. Later, after Catherine’s death, her daughter Mary would live with the Wrights for a decade or more. The Wrights were some of the…
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1840s: Mary Maddox, a Whole Estate, and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793
In the 1830s and 1840s, tensions in Gettysburg ran high because of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. In 1837, the death in Virginia of a moderately wealthy planter, Samuel Maddox, would touch off a constitutional crisis that involved kidnapping, imprisonments in both Virginia and Pennsylvania, and three different complex court cases. While simple on…
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1840s Jennie Wade: The Skellys and the Almshouse
The best-remembered of the family, Jennie Wade, was the third child born to Captain James Wade and his wife Mary Ann. The couple’s first child died in infancy; in 1841, Georgeanna was born, followed by Jennie in 1843. Captain Wade was a native Virginian with connections to a prominent family there and ancestry that had…