1. Baltimore Street Sycamores
How to Find These Trees
This is Witness Tree 01, a sycamore tree with a circumference of 172 inches. It stands in front of one of Gettysburg’s favorite destinations, Mr. G’s Ice Cream shop, which today is house in the 1819 Winebrenner House.
You will want to find your way to Baltimore Street in Gettysburg near the Farnsworth House. The two giant sycamore witness trees cannot be missed. Witness Tree 01 stands directly in front of Mr. G’s Ice Cream shop, and the other is about 40 yards south of it growing on the edge of Alumni Park, previously known as Unity Park.
What These Trees Witnessed
On July 1, 1863, Union soldiers of the 1st and 11th Corps retreated through town past these trees to the relative safety of Cemetery Ridge after being crushed by the attacking Confederates west and north of Gettysburg. On July 2 and 3, Confederate soldiers occupied the town and all the buildings within it, trading fire with the men in blue just a few hundred yards to the south.
On November 19, 1863, the new national cemetery in Gettysburg was dedicated. A crowd of visitors, celebrities, townsfolk accompanied President Abraham Lincoln as he rode a mule from the “diamond”, or “square” (today a roundabout, or “circle”) past these trees to the grounds of the new cemetery. Here, after waiting out the day’s ceremony’s main speaker – famed orator Edward Everett delivering a two-hour exercise in rhetoric on war – the president gave his “few remarks”, a minor footnote that today we remember as The Gettysburg Address.
Then and Now Comparisons
On November 19, 1863, an unknown photographer set up his camera where Baltimore Street intersects with the Emmitsburg Road (today, this section of the latter is known as Steinwehr Avenue), and snapped this shot of the parade of residents and visitors alike heading towards the new national cemetery, which was to be dedicated this day. President Abraham Lincoln was presumably to be found in this crowd somewhere, riding a mule. The main speaker at the ceremony was Edward Everett, who did not disappoint the audience with a two-hour long oration. President Lincoln followed with a few brief words, which today we remember as the famed “Gettysburg Address.”
Other Photographs
Witness Tree 02 at Alumni Park.
Witness Tree 02 at Alumni Park facing west across Baltimore Street on a sunny fall morning.
Witness Tree 01 at the corner of Baltimore Street and Lefever Street, in front of the 1819 Winebrenner House, today the home of Mr. G’s Ice Cream shop.
A third sycamore, with a diameter of 44 inches, stood until 2005 at the corner of Baltimore and Lefever Streets. This is a photo of a cross-section, or cookie, of the tree that can be seen in the museum of the Gettysburg Heritage Center on Steinwehr Avenue. The rings show that the tree was 205 years old when it was cut down, and was about two feet in diameter at the time of the battle!