Celebration Of The Homestead Orphanage’s 150th Anniversary

By Leon Reed · Originally published August 2016 · p. 23

GETTYSBURG, Pa.—A brief ceremony on Memorial Day celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Homestead Orphanage in Gettysburg. During the ceremony, a plaque was unveiled and a 19th-century poem about Sergeant Amos Humiston, whose death inspired the creation of the Orphanage, was recited by Robert Michels. Company A of the 61st PA and the Calvert Arms Fife and Drum band also participated in the ceremony. The Orphanage was inspired by the “Orphans of the Battlefield,” one of the sensational human interest stories to come out of the battle of Gettysburg. Several days after the battle, a Union soldier was found propped against a tree in town. He was clutching a photograph of three children in his hand, apparently getting some solace in his last moments from the portrait of his children. The cry “Who are the Orphans of the Battlefield?” was printed in every newspaper in the country. Eventually, Philinda Humiston of Portville, N.Y., identified the dead man as her husband, Sgt. Amos Humiston of the 154th New York. The children in the photo were his children Franklin (8),

Alice (6), and Frederick (4). The 154th had fought a few blocks north of where Humiston was found at the Brickyard Fight late on the afternoon of July 1. Funds raised in response to this story were used to endow an orphanage in Gettysburg for orphans of Civil War soldiers. Philinda was the first head matron and her children among the first residents, but when she remarried she was replaced by Rosa Carmichael. Carmichael later was convicted of child abuse and the orphanage collapsed in 1877 in the resulting scandal. For about 60 years starting in the 1960s, the Orphanage building was used as the site of the Charlie Weaver Museum (founded by Hollywood personality Cliff Arquette) and, later, the Soldiers National Museum. The museum closed in 2014 and collection was sold at auction. Max Felty, owner of the orphanage building, stated that the exterior of the building has been restored to its original appearance and other steps such as burying utilities were taken to help improve the appearance of that section of Baltimore St. Currently the building houses a bookstore and is used at night for ghost tours.