Fall Sunday Afternoon Program – September 21, 2025

The Farms of the Taneytown Road

House and Farm Historian Kendra Debany and LBG Paul Bailey.

In late June 1886 Jacob Hummelbaugh’s daughter-in-law wrote a letter to the Quartermaster General’s Office begging to be reimbursed for losses the family suffered during the Battle of Gettysburg. “If others had not received damages we would not expect them,” she wrote.  “Those who live away from the battlefield or on the far limits of it get well payed (sic) and have plenty without damages, and those of us living on the field where the hardest fiteing (sic) was done…never got a cent.”  The Hummelbaugh family’s own “battle” with the government would continue on for another four years…27 years after the fighting ended. The story of Jacob Hummelbaugh is just one of the many stories we’ll cover on our tour of the farms along the Taneytown Road.  This tour will focus on the history of the farms and their owners before the battle, what they experienced during the battle, including how the properties were used by the Union Army, and what happened to the owners and their farms after the battle.

Meeting Place: We will begin at the base of Cemetery Hill on the Guinn Farm (the current Park Law Enforcement office) then use the Park Walking Path to move from farm to farm down the Taneytown Road, ending at the Hummelbaugh Farm. Park at the National Cemetery Overflow lot. Light to moderate walking (approximately one kilometer) with frequent stops.

Acknowledgement of Risks