Ghosts of Gettysburg

On our way back from DC last week, Ella and I stopped at one of my favorite historic sites, Gettysburg.  We always try to stay at the Colton Motel because of its location and value.  It is located on Steinwehr Ave. alongside the National Cemetery. 

When we checked in, the host told us that our room, number 27, is haunted.  This is a great sales technique for hotels.  It turns out that this corner room is the closest hotel room to the Cemetery in Gettysburg.  According to the hosts, a Union soldier comes at night to tell you to stay down and out of harms way.   Great local color for a hotel!  If you ever go to Gettysburg, you'll see that on every street corner someone is offering a "ghost walk" around town.  Ghost Guides in period clothing lead groups of twenty or so curious tourists around by the light of an old lantern, spinning tales like "blue boy" and "Lincoln's Ghost train".  Supernatural tourism is very good business.  Sam and I once took a trip to Granville, Ohio to spend the night in the Buxton Inn because it has made it onto a number of TV shows about the supernatural. It's always good business to add a ghost to the list of amenities for any hotel stay.


We walked into town that evening for dinner and on the way, right outside our hotel room, is a momument to the 55th Ohio regiment from Norwalk, Ohio.  My Great Great Grandfather Jerome and his brother Edmund Franklin were both conscripted into that unit earlier that year and fought at Gettysburg.  My Grandfather, a World War I veteran himself, used to tell tales about his Grandfather in the Civil War and the effect that it had on him, but I had never been able to find the monument on past visits.  The 55th Ohio were stationed right at the bend in the infamous "Fishook" defense of the Union Army and saw continuous action throughout the three days of battle.   We can only wonder how these coincidences occur in life.  Carl Jung called it  "Synchronicity".  It means basically that there are many things in life that go beyond our human understanding.  This should be obvious to us, but we like to hang on to the notion that we can explain everything.  Life holds many mysteries. 

In the top photo you can see the motel in the background.

You can also see the iron National Cemetery fence behind the monument.

The second picture is to prove I was there.

Someone had left a buckeye on top of this monument.

I put my hand on it when I reached up for the picture.

I sleep like a rock and wouldn't have known if we had an otherworldly visitor anyway.  But, it was a good excuse to sleep with the light on just in case...  I still keep my ancestors close to me.