This significant civil war house and contributing structure to the historic district is marked by the historical society and has been turned into a museum to teach about local cultural history with regards to the Battle of Gettysburg. At night it is haunted! There is a company that does a ghost tour at night and this site is on the menu of scary places to visit....boo!
The following comes from the company's website:
The Shriver House Museum is one of Gettysburg’s greatest treasures. Located on 309 Baltimore Street, just blocks from the battlefield, the restored home of George Washington Shriver and his family tells the story of the battle of Gettysburg from the civilian perspective.
Mrs. Shriver and her two young daughters, Sadie and Mollie, and their teenage neighbor, Tillie Pierce, witnessed the entire battle from Mrs. Shriver’s parents farm next to Little Round Top. Ironically, they had gone there to escape the fighting in town, thinking it would be safer, and having no idea they were about to be caught in the crossfire of some of the worst fighting yet!
For many days the battle literally raged around their heads, and they had to scream to hear each other over the noise of cannons and musket fire. The group spent most of their time trying to help the wounded as best they could, baking bread for them and cleaning their wounds.
VUpon returning home afterwards Mrs. Shriver and the three girls found a totally different town than the one they had left. Broken fences, destroyed crops, and the dead and wounded lay everywhere. The Shrivers’ home had been damaged too. In their absence a Confederate snipers nest had been set up in their attic and holes were knocked into the home’s back wall so that the rebels could shoot Union soldiers on Cemetery Hill.
The Shriver House is open to the public every day from April threw Remembrance Day and on weekends in December and March. Visitors can tour all four levels of the home, from the attic where the two Confederate snipers died (and still occassionally make their presence felt), to the homes basement where George Shriver (who ultimately died in Andersonville Prison) once operated a saloon.
From my previous waymark:
The mission of the Shriver House Museum is to provide an often overlooked perspective of the Battle of Gettysburg, the civilian experience during and after one of the deadliest and most historic battles ever fought on American soil.
The Shriver House Museum is located in the Historic District halfway between Lincoln Square in the center of town and the National Park Visitors Center.
Tours of the Museum are conducted by guides in period attire. When I visited on Friday, the house was open and I walked inside but didn't see anyone around so I left abruptly.
The Shriver House Museum is open seven days a week, April through Remembrance Day (mid-November). Groups of ten or more with advance reservations, however, are welcome any time throughout the year. There is also a museum shop located adjacent to the home and I think that may have been the part of the house I entered. There are two identical 19th century brick homes right next to each other.
This historic, Civil War house is marked by an interpretive courtesy of Main Street Gettysburg© and tells the tale of the home, its owners and the property's part in the Battle of Gettysburg. This sign of history/interpretive is part of a much larger series which tells the tale of the Battle of Gettysburg through the eyes of its citizens and their recollections and stories. This sign is in front of the Shriver house/museum, on the sidewalk. The SOH reads:
This 1860 home was the wartime residence of George and Hettie Schriver. The cellar housed Schriver's Saloon and Ten-pin Alley.
At the time of the battle, George was away serving in Cole's Cavalry. In the early afternoon of July 1st Hettie took her daughters, Sadie and Mollie, along with neighbor Tillie Pierce, to seek refuge at her family's farm by Little Round Top.
Confederate soldiers commandeered her home and set up a sharpshooter's position. For the next two days they exchanged rifle shots with their Union adversaries on Cemetery Hill, firing from makeshift portholes knocked through the south attic wall. Their deadly game was not played without a cost. John Rupp, a neighbor noted in a post battle letter that Union snipers "...killed two up in Mr. Schriver's house.."
Bloody fighting conducted from their home would not be the last of the war's cruel fate to touch the Schriver family. On January 1, 1864, Sergeant George W. Schriver was captured during a skirmish with Mosby's Rangers in Virginia and imprisoned at Andersonville, Georgia.
This 1860 house, constructed with a saloon and ten-pin alley, was the wartime residence of George and Henrietta Shriver