Gettysburg, PA

We stayed at a very unique Hostel, Ironmaster's Mansion, located in Pine Grove Furnace State Park just north of the town of Gettysburg. Built in 1829, it was the home of the ironmaster of the Pine Grove Furnace Ironworks. The company made cannonballs during the Revolutionary War and the house served as a stop on the underground railroad for runaway slaves.

The hostel is actually on the midpoint of the Appalachian Trail and chiefly serves as a one-night rest stop for hikers on the trail. The manager was surprised to even have guests in the winter - especially ones who stayed more than one night! Their bulletin board was filled with post cards from people after they had finished hiking. Again it made us consider if thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail was on our long "to do" list of life.

Old Alms House Cemetery

Many agree that the small town of Gettysburg served as a turning point of the Civil War during the summer of 1863. General Lee was on the move into Union territory with the Army of North Virginia, passing through Maryland and into Pennsylvania. More men died at the Battle of Gettysburg than in any other battle fought in North America before or since. It's hard to think of it as "a" battle. Consisting of several large conflicts and countless skirmishes, it lasted over 3 days in the balmy July heat of southern Pennsylvania.

We started our exploration of the area at the Gettysburg National Military Visitor Center. The center was recently renovated for a staggering $135 million! And it showed. You know those "Excelerator" hand dryers in the bathrooms that blow the skin off your hands? Well they've got 'em.

44th New York Infantry Tower Monument

We first watched a very informative video entitled "A New Birth of Freedom" that was narrated by Morgan Freeman (no surprise there). Then we made our way through the musuem that had just the right amount of information - not too much and not too little.

Well maybe there was too much to recount here, so here's just a few details we learned about...

1861 saw the first flag of the Confederate - the Stars and Bars - with 11 stars to represent the states of the Confederate. In 1863, the flag was changed to the more familiar design to avoid confusion on the battlefield. The U.S. flag retained its 34 stars throughout the war. The U.S. government never recognized the right of the Confederate states to secede.



The first fighting of the Civil War broke out at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, with Confederate forces capturing the fort after a Union surrender 34 hours later. Abner Doubleday, a Union solder, later wrote that he believed the first shot "seemed to bury itself in the masonry about a foot from my head, in very unpleasant proximity to my right ear." Amazingly, the drawn out bombardment didn't result in a single Union casualty. The Union would spend the next 4 years attempting to retake the fort.



Volunteers comprised both armies for some time, but by April of 1862 the Confederacy instituted a draft and the Union followed suit the next year. To avoid the draft, a man could pay a fee or hire a substitute. Valentine Bechler, a New Jersey soldier, lamented, "For the rich man, so he can make more money, the poor man should risk his life and I should get slaughtered." In the south, one white male was exempt from every plantation with 20 or more slaves.

Abraham Lincoln wrote of the Emancipation Proclamation, "I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper." The Emancipation freed all slaves in the Confederate lands still opposed to the Union - and every escaped slave from the South resulted in one less laborer for the war effort and the possibility of them fighting for the Union. What most people forget (us included) is that Lincoln did not free all the slaves. It did not include those slaves in the "border states" - Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware - or those slaves in Union-occupied Confederate land. Lincoln feared losing the border states to the Confederacy and did not feel he had the right to free slaves in states that were still part of the U.S.



Also included in the visitor center is a painting by Paul Philippoteaux called the "Battle of Gettysburg" cyclorama. The painting was completed in 1844 and forms a huge cylinder - about 27 feet high and 359 feet in circumference. It provides a 360 degree view of the battle during Pickett's charge. It's like standing in the middle of a giant diorama. There were props and artifacts arranged in front of the painting, giving the illusion of a seamless perspective out into the distance.

Our next day was spent exploring the battlefield itself. There is a self-guided auto tour that's about 24 miles long, taking you near all the important landmarks of the battle.



Can you believe there are over 1,300 monuments and historical markers in the park? We didn't even try to count. Some are marble behemoths, others are huge bronze statues, and many are simple chiseled stone markers designating where a unit or brigade was located. Of course they didn't appear overnight. In the 1880's the monument-placing-pace picked up, and eventually every Union regiment that fought at Gettysburg erected at least one monument. Their style and design are quite varied, but there is some rhyme or reason.



For instance, the circular bases (pictured above) are confederate brigade markers and the square bases are union brigade markers.



Also, whenever you see a vertical canon (pictured above) that is where a headquarters was located.

The most magnificant monuments are those honoring individual states.

North Carolina Monument

One of the most moving state monuments was the one for North Carolina. It was dedicated on July 3, 1929 and the sculptor was Gutzon Borglum (yep, the same guy that did Mount Rushmore - man, he really got around). About 14,000 soldiers from North Carolina fought at Gettysburg and more than 6,100 were killed, wounded, or missing - more than from any other Confederate state.

The last stop on the auto tour was the Soldier's National Cemetery.

Gettysburg was the largest battle ever fought in the western hemisphere. It also produced the greatest bloodshed: 10,000 killed or mortally wounded, nearly 30,000 wounded, and almost 10,000 captured or missing. The town was left in shambles yet recovery efforts began immediately after the battle. Many of the dead were hastily buried in shallow graves within one week of the battle. The crude graves were seen as temporary solution for the disposal of the dead, and were completed quickly for fear that an epidemic might spread in the hot, humid summer conditions. The markings of these burials were also very rough and temporary, typically a wooden board with the soldier's name written in pencil and placed at the head of his grave. Many of the identifications were lost - and this led to the need for permanent burials and thus the Soldier's National Cemetery.



Pennsylvania governor Andrew Curtin spearheaded the effort to purchase 17 acres to serve as the Gettysburg National Cemetery. Dedication of the cemetery occurred on November 19, 1863 - just 4 1/2 months after the battle. Edward Everett of Massachusetts was the main speaker of the day, and "delivered a well-received two-hour oration rich in historical detail and classical allusion." He was a former governor, congressman, senator and secretary of state - and one of the most famous orators of the day. Have you ever heard of him? Me neither.



Another speaker was asked to make "a few appropriate remarks." President Abraham Lincoln then spoke for about two minutes - 272 words - and gave what became known as the Gettysburg Address. Lincoln saw his own speech at Gettysburg as an opportunity to help define for the nation what was at stake in the war and why a Union victory was crucial. "I should be glad," Everett told Lincoln, "if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes." I just wish some of my professors had taken a leaf out of Lincoln's (concise) book.

The Rostrum (the brick speaker's stand at the entrance to the cemetery) was built in 1879. Lincoln didn't speak from this platform, but six U.S. presidents used it during Memorial Day services and other ceremonies (Rutherford B. Hayes - 1878, Teddy Roosevelt - 1904, Calvin Coolidge - 1928, Herbert Hoover - 1930, Franklin D. Roosevelt - 1934, and Dwight Eisenhower - 1955).

The Lincoln Speech Memorial is not the location of Lincoln's speech, but a memorial for the speech itself - and probably the only memorial to a speech.

Soldier's National Monument

The center of the cemetery is marked by the Soldier's National Monument. The shaft of the monument supports a statue of the "Genius of Liberty," and is surrounded by four other marble figures that represent:

• War - an American soldier speaking to the second monument about the battle of Gettysburg
• History - a woman recording the names and accomplishments of the soldiers that died
• Plenty - a woman representing peace after the war by holding wheat and displaying cornucopias
• Peace - a male mechanic shown with a hammer and cogs

Radiating out from the Soldier's National Monument are wide semi-circles of gravestones - 3,500 Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg. Burials are organized around state sections, divided into an inner ring for smaller states and an outer ring for larger states. Men of different rank and position rest side-by-side.


The larger gray stones are state section markers and show number fallen from each state. The long stones set nearly at ground level are gravestones for the remains of the soldiers with marked names. And the hundreds of small marble squares bearing only numbers are for the Unknown, of which there were 979.

In addition to attempts at identification, each soldier received a proper burial with the remains being placed in a pine coffin which was then buried to a depth of four feet. The reburials were not completed until March 1864 - about 4 months after the dedication of the cemetery.

The Confederate dead remained buried on the battlefield. Between 7 and 10 years after the battle, the Southern remains (over 2300 altogether) were returned home to four primary locations - Richmond, VA, Raleigh, NC, Savannah, GA, and Charleston, SC.

While over 10,000 died at Gettysburg alone, during the four years of the Civil War over 620,000 Americans perished. There are 3,307 post-Civil War burials in the cemetery. The cemetery contains the remains of American soldiers and dependents from the Civil War through Vietnam.

"It is easy to forget that each grave represents not only a victim of war, but also the unseen victims at home - wives, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and children, who all mourned the passing of a loved one."

Lancaster County, PA

Who would have guessed that an area housing 52,000 Anabaptists would have township names like Bird-In-Hand, Paradise, and Intercourse.

Anabaptists, by the way, include the Amish, Brethren, Mennonites and United Zions.

This is beautiful country and very peaceful. And we hope the Anabaptist communities can maintain their authenticity and hold true to their beliefs despite all the touristy things visitors can do like take an "Amish buggy ride" or spend a night in an Amish family's home.

It was interesting to witness the mix of Anabaptist families with average families, and to see the buggies and push bikes travel cohesively with automobiles. In contrast, the Anabaptist community we saw in Ohio was separate from the neighboring community.


With questionable weather over the next few days, we decided to stay put at the Country Hearth Bed and Breakfast in New Holland, PA. It is CUTE - and we highly recommend it to everyone visiting Lancaster County!

The house was built in 1793. It has original fireplaces, pine floors, and wide window sills. It was decorated exactly as you'd picture for the holidays - with garland on the railings and candles in every window.



David & Bonnie are wonderful hosts and their breakfast - yummy! The couple have really taken to their neighbors and encourage visitors to learn as much as possible about the nearby Anabaptist communities.

They understood that we were curious about the religious communities in the area, but also our hesitency in imposing on their way of life. David suggested we read a few books he had and spend the next two evenings watching a movie and documentary that give good overviews on the Amish way of life.

We watched The Witness (starring Harrison Ford) and Saving Sarah Cain. David said The Witness was a bit "Hollywood," but gave an accurate depiction of the Amish in everyday life. We also read The Happening - Nickel Mines School Tragedy, which is a book on the Nickel Mines School shooting in 2006. It was written by Harvey Yoder and shows the community's strength and the power of forgiveness.


We hit more bakeries than should be allowed, ate at an authentic Smorgasbord, and picked up a few slabs of cheese and chocolate. The weather was spectacular, and we were able to get out and see a few of the famous covered bridges of Lancaster County.

Hershey, PA - "The Sweetest Place on Earth"

I received a note form a former student today: "Instead of Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? It's now Where In The USA Is Michele Muffoletto?" It made me smile.

Well, now we are at "The Sweetest Place on Earth," also known as Hershey, Pennsylvania. Our first stop was The Hershey Story to learn all we could about Mr. Milton Hershey.

Let's see if we can give you the basic story...

All I kept thinking about when reading the kiosks in the museum was "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!" And Mr. Hershey is the epitome of that.

He began his career as a candy maker's apprentice in Lancaster, PA. Milton tried to start his own business in Philadelphia, but it didn't work. He decided to move to Denver to work with a confectioner who shared his milky caramel recipe.

Milton opened another candy store in NYC, but - you guessed it - that didn't work out so well either. So he returned to Lancaster and successfully opened a caramel company - the Lancaster Caramel Company.


Milton bought some chocolate making machinery after the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. His new product - chocolate covered caramels. Yum! After years of trial and error, Hershey finally came up with the perfect formula for milk chocolate and began mass producing it. It was now affordable for everyone - The Hershey Bar.

With the success of the bar, Hershey sold his caramel company for $1 million and focused only on chocolate. He decided to build his chocolate factory in his hometown - Derry Township, Pennsylvania. Why? It was close to the water, convenient for receiving shipments of cocoa beans and sugar - and there were plenty of dairy farms - and you need milk to make milk chocolate.

The groundbreaking was in 1903, and in 1906, Derry Township was renamed Hershey.



Some facts about Hershey's Kisses (Thank you HersheyPA.com):

• In 1907, The Hershey Company began producing a flat-bottomed, conical milk chocolate candy which Mr. Hershey decided to name Hershey's Kisses.
• It is believed that Kisses got their name for the sound or motion of the chocolate being deposited during the manufacturing process.
• At first, the Hershey's Kisses were individually hand-wrapped in little squares of silver foil. In 1921, machine wrapping was introduced, along with the “plume” at the top to signify to consumers that it was a genuine Hershey's Kiss. It was trademarked in 1924.
• More than 80 million Hershey's Kisses are made every day in the Hershey and Virginia factories.
• It takes about 95 Hershey's Kisses chocolates to equal one pound of chocolate.
• In 1942, production of Hershey's Kisses was halted to save foil for the war effort.
• When the Hershey's Kisses brand turned 100 (July 2007), The Hershey Company unveiled "The World's Largest Hershey's Kisses Chocolate" in Hershey, PA. It weighed 30,540 pounds and was wrapped in silver foil with a giant plume.
• If stranded on a desert island, more than half of Americans surveyed would rather have an unlimited supply of Hershey's Kisses brand SPECIAL DARK Chocolates than their favorite book.
• The longest ever consecutive string of Hershey's Kisses Brand Chocolates was more than four miles long! It was laid in the spring of 2003 to raise money for the Children's Miracle Network at Penn State Children's Hospital. The event earned a listing in the Guinness Book of World Records.

It is true - the street lamps in Hershey, PA
are shaped like Hershey's Kisses!

In 1909, Milton and his wife Catherine (who never had children of their own) established the Hershey Industrial School, a school for orphan boys. Today, it is named the Milton Hershey School, and serves all. Our friend, Tom, is a product of the Hershey Industrial School.

Milton died in 1945, but he left his wealth, including his share of the Hershey Chocolate Company, to the institutions he established - providing a guaranteed trust for the future.



We couldn't pass up Chocolate World to see the Hershey's Holiday Chocolate House: A Sweet Candy Chalet (made completely of candy!)

• Stands 13 feet tall and occupies over 100 square feet of floor space.
• The roof is finished with over 1,500 oversized Hershey's Milk and Hershey's Dark Chocolate bars.
• 3,000 Cookies-n-Creme candy bars are the stone facade.
• The porch railing is covered in nearly 2,000 Hershey's Bliss White Chocolate with Meltaway Center candies.
• 50 Reese's Peanut Butter Cups trim the exterior of the chalet crowned by the World's Largest Reese's Peanut Butter Cups at the top of each dormer.
• Jolly Rancher candy stained-glass windows, each pane weighs 60 pounds.
• Over 200 feet of green Twizzlers licorice rope line the railings crowned with Bubble Yum chewing gum candy bows.
• 5 World's Largest Hershey Milk Chocolate bars create a pathway to the front door and weigh 5-lbs. per bar.
• It took over 1500 hours to decorate the chateau.

We splurged and spent the night in the Hershey Lodge, where everything is covered in Hershey's Kisses. The wallpaper was embossed with the Hershey's Kisses pattern and the sheets were embroidered, too! We were welcomed with two Hershey Chocolate Bars, and a plate of cookies and milk. We also caught dinner and a Christmas show at the Hershey Lodge. It was a nice treat.

Rhode Island

For the first time on this road trip, we have become a bit weary. It was nice to stay in one place for a few weeks and spend time with familiar people. It was really hard to leave, but the show must go on! We are grateful to Aunt Susan and Uncle Marshall for being great people!

It was off to Providence to view the Rhode Island State House. This is the 7th State House of Rhode Island, and the second in Providence.


State House Facts:

• Constructed from 1895 to 1904, renovated in the late 1990s.
• It is the fourth-largest self-supporting marble covered dome in the world (largest is of St. Peter's in Vatican City, followed by the domes of the Minnesota State Capitol and the Taj Mahal in Agra, India.)
• It is made of 15 million bricks, 327,000 cubic feet of white Georgia marble, and 1,309 short tons of iron floor beams.

It is a lovely state house, you just have to look past the window A/C units.

Who's the guy on the dome? The Independent Man originally named "Hope." He weighs more than 500 pounds and represents freedom and independence.

We spotted the Governor's ride - a huge GMC SUV with the "1" license plate.

The Coggeshall Farm Museum is a living history museum in Bristol, Rhode Island. It reminded me of the Rural Life Museum in Baton Rouge.

They focus on agrarian life on a coastal Rhode Island farm in the late 18th century. There are 48 acres with typical 18th century structures including a farmhouse that is being restored.

We saw a true pigsty. It was smelly and gross, but the pigs were cute. There were sleepy cows with horns and a shy donkey. It was one of my favorite spots in Rhode Island.


Now a drive to a coastal state wouldn't be complete without finding a lighthouse. And we found Sakonnet Point Lighthouse.

This "sparkplug" style lighthouse is a cast-iron tower that sits on top of a cast-iron foundation filled with concrete. It was built between 1883 and 1884, and the first beacon was a fourth-order lens.

The lighthouse was damaged by a 1938 hurricane, and again in 1954. The Coast Guard almost tore it down after learning of the $100,000 price tag to rebuild it. It was sold to a private owner in 1961, then donated to the newly formed Friends of Sakonnet Point in 1985.


The coastal town of Little Compton has proved a great place to grow grapes, so a tour of the Sakonnet Vineyard was on our list.

The vineyard was opened in 1975. Today, 50-acres are planted and the vineyard produces over 30,000 cases a year.

Our favorite wine was the Cock of the Walk Red. And we even splurged and tried our first Port. Yum!


Newport's Cliff Walk
In the late 1800s, the summer getaway for wealthy New Yorkers was Newport's undeveloped shoreline. Today, there is a 3.5 mile walkway along the coast that allows visitors a closer look at these summer "cottages."

Forty Steps - a former gathering place for the servants
and workers from the nearby mansions.

We didn't tour any of the mansions, but we did visit the grounds of The Breakers - "Conspicuous Consumption."



It is considered "the grandest of Newport's summer cottages," and it is a symbol of the Vanderbilt family's social and financial prominence.

The Vanderbilts are infamous, and Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt is known as the 2nd Wealthiest American Ever, valued at $143 billion. (NY Times, 2007. John D. Rockefeller is #1 at $192 billion.)

So how did Vanderbilt make his fortune?
In steamships and the New York Central Railroad.


Cornelius Vanderbilt II (Vanderbilt's grandson), was the Chairman and President of the New York Central Railroad system. In 1885, he purchased a wooden house in Newport called The Breakers. The wooden house was destroyed by fire, and architect Richard Morris Hunt was commissioned in 1883 to design a fancy villa to replace the wooden home. (NOTE: You'll see Richard Morris Hunt's name again in a later entry. He was also commissioned to design the Biltmore home in Asheville, NC - also owned by a Vanderbilt.)

Some Facts:

• 70 rooms (33 of those rooms were for the staff)
• Built in 2 years
• $7 million
• 40 staff (20 in the house and 20 on the grounds)

The Breakers opened to the public in 1948, and in 1972 the Preservation Society purchased the house from her heirs.



The Old Stone Mill - a Newport landmark.
There is no proof of a construction date, but there is evidence that is was built between 1653 and 1677 by Benedict Arnold, the first colonial governor of Rhode Island. Some say the Vikings built the stone structure back in 1000 A.D., but that was disproven in 1993 by the Committee for Research on Norse Activities in North America AD 1000-1500.