Script for Interpretive Tour Program
Michael Jacobs: Innovative Curiosity
Tour Time: Approximately 50 minutes with travel time (22 Minutes of Media)
Stop 1:
Gettysburg Academy Building1
Corner of South Washington Street and High Street
“Welcome to Gettysburg. This tour will take you around the borough, onto the college
campus, and back into the third ward, discussing one man who witnessed the battle and
influenced his community: Michael Jacobs, a professor at the college and an upstanding
citizen of the borough of Gettysburg.”
Image: Gettysburg Gymnasium, Gettysburg College Special Collections
“Our Tour begins at the corner of South Washington Street and High Street. In the tan
building, on the southeast corner of this intersection in 1832 was founded Pennsylvania
College, later to become Gettysburg College. Among its first professors was Michael
Jacobs.”
Image: Michael Jacobs, Gettysburg College Special Collections
“Jacobs haled from Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Born in 1808, Jacobs received his
education from Jefferson College (now Washington and Jefferson College) originally in
Canonsburg, Pennsylvania.”
Image: Gettysburg Gymnasium, Gettysburg College Special Collections
“In 1829, after graduating, Jacobs began teaching alongside his brother David in the
Gettysburg Gymnasium. In 1832, this institution would be adopted by Samuel Simon
Schmucker as a farm-school for the Lutheran Theological Seminary west of town.
Jacobs now found himself a professor of Mathematics and Science in the new college.”
Image: Michael Jacobs, Gettysburg College Special Collections
“Professor Hay, one of Jacobs' contemporaries, wrote of him that, ' labors in the College
were very arduous.' Hay goes on to note that, upon Jacobs' leaving the college, it took
three professors to occupy the one field he had taught alone.”
Image: Interior of Linnean Hall (showing scientific collection and equipment), Gettysburg
College Special Collections
“The budget at the college was so tight that, 'in order to do justice to his department,
[Jacobs] was compelled to construct the most of the chemical and philosophical
apparatus that he used,' by hand, instead of buying it from a store or a catalogue. So
well constructed was the equipment that it was still in use in the 1880s -- 30, 40, 50
years after Jacobs had cobbled it together.”
1
E.S. Breidenbaugh, ed. The Pennsylvania College Book: 1832-1882, (Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication
Society, 1882) p. 158-160; James F. Crocker, Prison Reminiscences: Read Before Stonewall Camp, Confederate
Veterans, Portsmouth, Virginia, February 2nd, 1904 (Portsmouth, Va.: W. A. Fiske, Printer and Bookbinder, 1906), 2-4.
Image: Michael Jacobs, Gettysburg College Special Collections
“Hay notes that primary among Jacobs' qualities was his, ' quickness of perception.'
Jacobs was a consummate scientist and mathematician, always calculating and
observing.”
Images: Students of Penna. College (Class of 1862), Gettysburg College Special Collections
“In his role dealing with 16, 17 and 18 year old boys, Jacobs was often, as Hay wrote,
dealing with, 'less gifted and more sluggish minds that he was painfully laboring to
inspire with a love for his darling science.' The study, often, was like, 'a cross to him, as
it fairly tortured him to find how slow his pupils were to grasp what seemed to him clear
as a sunbeam.'”
Image: Michael Jacobs, Gettysburg College Special Collections
“Michael Jacobs was a 19th century mind distinctly wired for science. In an era where
science was pushing forward, Jacobs was on the cutting edge of that trend.”
Image: Images of Battlefield, Library of Congress, Prints and Photos Division
“The professor utilized the fields and farms surrounding Gettysburg as his classroom,
stepping outside the walls and taking his students on tours to the marshes, rocky
outcroppings, and other geologic and natural features that surround the borough. In
undertaking these rambles over the fields around Gettysburg, Jacobs understood the
unique terrain that surrounded the borough. This knowledge would help him later in life
as he moved more from the sciences into an historical investigation of the world around
him.”
Transition: “Jacobs' deep curiosity and abiding love of technology would take him to
the forefront of a charge to light the streets of Gettysburg. At our next stop, we'll discuss
the Gas Company of Gettysburg, and Jacobs' role in undertaking the Promethean task of
bringing light to the darkness of the streets.”
Directions: “To get to our next stop, as you face the old college building, look to your
left up High Street. Follow this street until it hits Baltimore Street (the next intersection
with a traffic light). Turn left and walk two blocks to the center square of Gettysburg,
known in the 1860s as the Diamond. Pause me now, and restart me when we arrive at
the Diamond.”
Stop 2:
Lincoln Square / The Diamond2
Center Square of Town
Image: Photo of Diorama on Display in Union Drummer Boy Relic Shop
“In the 1860s, Lincoln Square was a bustling hub of activity. On the southwest corner of
the square, site of the present day House of Bender, lay Schick's store, a popular dry
goods store at the time...”
Image: M. L. Stoever, Gettysburg College, Special Collections
“... as well as the home of Martin Luther Stoever, a professor at the college.”
Image: David Wills, Gettysburg College, Special Collections
“On the southeast corner of the square, in what today is a large, red brick building, lay
the home of David Wills, a prominent attorney and graduate of the class of 1851 of
Pennsylvania College.”
Image: Photo of Diorama on Display in Union Drummer Boy Relic Shop
“Ringing the 'Diamond,' as it was called in the mid-19th century, and out its spokes, were
a myriad of businesses, hotels and shops. But standing anywhere in the town, in the
1850s, after dark, none of this would be apparent. The streets were pitch black, except
for pools of light spilling out of windows from oil lamps and candles. It was in this
climate, in 1859, that a group of forward thinking citizens of Gettysburg decided to
create a gas works.”
Image: Detail from Gettysburg Gymnasium, Gettysburg College Special Collections
“The foundation of the Gettysburg gas works is unique in Gettysburg's 19th century
history. The project to light the streets of the town is one of few bi-partisan undertakings
during that century.”
Image: Adams Sentinel, 31 October 1859, Masthead
“The genesis of the gas works appears to be a series of letters which appeared in all of
the major Gettysburg newspapers in the fall of 1859.”
Image: Adams Sentinel, 31 October 1859, Details from Articles
“On October 31st, 1859, the Adams Sentinel, one of the town's two Republican
newspapers, called the attention of the readers to an article written by signing with the
letter, 'J.' The Sentinel's editor claims that the letter comes from, the pen of one of our
most scientific citizens, who is fully able and prepared to furnish every information upon
this interesting subject.'”
2
Gerald R. Bennett, Days of “Uncertainty and Dread”: The Ordeal Endured by the Citizens at Gettysburg
(Camp Hill, PA: Plank's Suburban Press, 1990); “Gas Light! Gas Light!,” Adams Sentinel, 31 October 1859; “Gas
Light.” Gettysburg Compiler, 31 October 1859; “Public Meeting.” Adams Sentinel, 21 November 1859; “The Gas Works
Finished! A Complete Success!” Gettysburg Compiler, 20 August 1860;
Image: Gettysburg Compiler masthead
“The same article, and those following it, appear in the Democratic Compiler as well.”
Image: Adams Sentinel, 21 November 1859, Details from Articles
“By mid-November, the plan had gained the support of most of the prominent citizens of
Gettysburg, including the editors of the three newspapers in town, members of the legal
profession including David Wills, and store owners including Mr. Schick. Prominent
among the committee, one of the only members with the scientific knowledge to write
the articles, and one of the few members with 'J' in his name is Michael Jacobs,
professor from the college.”
Image: Michael Jacobs, Gettysburg College Special Collections
“Jacobs' articles helped push forward the effort to light the streets of Gettysburg, to bring
light to the darkness of the town. Over the course of the next year, meetings were held,
committees were formed, funds were raised, and the work on a central gas production
plant and pipelines through the streets of Gettysburg was begun.”
Image: Gettysburg Compiler, 20 August 1860, Details from Articles
“The task was completed by August of 1860. 'The Gas Works Finished!' crowed the
Compiler, 'A Complete Success!' 'Expressions of delight were heard on all sides,' the
newspaper reported, 'but which were heightened to an intense degree after dusk when
houses in the several streets were brilliantly lighted up.' The Compiler goes on to
recount that, 'citizens were all on the streets, enjoying the gas light as reflected from
hundreds of chandeliers and brackets. A large bonfire was kindled in the Diamond.
Soon after, stirring martial music was brought out, succeeded by some excellent
performances by the citizens band. Altogether it was a memorable evening, and one not
soon to be forgotten.'”
Image: Michael Jacobs, Gettysburg College Special Collections
Transition: “Without the work of Michael Jacobs and his scientific articles, which had
appeared a year earlier in the newspapers of the town, none of this would have occurred.
Gettysburg's streets might have remained dark throughout the Civil War, as money and
men and material were shunted off tot the war effort. While the town celebrated Jacobs'
task completed, the rest of the nation sat on the brink of war. That war had the town of
Gettysburg in its cross hairs. At our next stop, we'll be visiting a portion of the
battlefield that's created here in July of 1863. But also, a portion of the campus upon
which Michael Jacobs worked.”
Directions: “Walk up the north spoke of Lincoln Square, Carlisle Street, one block,
until you reach the Lincoln Train Station on your right hand side, and the Lincoln Diner
on your left. Turn left onto Railroad Street and walk one more block until you reach
North Washington Street. Then turn right, walk yet another block and you'll be on the
campus of Pennsylvania College, now Gettysburg College. Look for the large white
building with the Cupola in the center of the campus. This is Pennsylvania Hall or th
College Edifice. This is our next stop. Pause me now, and start me up again when we
reach the college campus and Pennsylvania Hall.”
Stop 3:
Pennsylvania College3
In Front of Pennsylvania Hall
Image: Michael Jacobs, Gettysburg College Special Collections
“Had it not been for the intervening events of July 1st, 2nd and 3rd, 1863, Professor
Michael Jacobs' legacy might look very different.”
Image: Literary Record and Journal of the Linnaean Association, Front Page
“Before the Civil War, Jacobs' claim to fame was a set of articles written in the 1840s.
While editing the Linnaean journal for the College's Linnaean society, Jacobs wrote a
series of articles on meteorology.”
Image: Literary Record and Journal of the Linnaean Association, Article Detail
“Beginning with an elementary discussion of meteorology's definition, Jacobs quickly
moves on to the forces which change the world around us. His meticulous nature helps
him understand the events of indian summer and various other meteorological
anomalies.”
Image: Battle Period Weather Report, ACHS Civilian Accounts Files
“In fact, many history books do remember Jacobs particularly for his fascination with
the weather. Because of the professor, we understand the meteorological conditions of
July 1st, 2nd and 3rd, 1863, as he reported them to the National Weather Service in
Philadelphia and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.”
Image: 1862 Image of Campus, Gettysburg College Special Collections
“On July 1st 1863, the college campus was situated behind Federal lines to the north and
west of town. As these lines came crashing backwards, the fighting would pass across
the campus around the buildings which surround you today. In front of you is
Pennsylvania Hall, the large white building with the cupola and the columns on the
front: the main college edifice and the first purpose-built building for Pennsylvania
College. To its left, no longer standing, was Linnaean Hall, a small satellite building
used for science classes. Behind you, and to your left, to the west, is the other white
building in this quad. The alumni house currently, this was the president's home in the
1860s, during the time of the battle.”
Image: 1880s detail of Pennsylvania Hall, Gettysburg College Special Collections
“College classes were occurring on the morning of July 1st. Jacobs was teaching math
and science just as always. Signal Corp men ran through the college edifice, headed for
the cupola. They were looking for a high point on the field where they could survey
their own lines, and see the enemy assaulting them. Jacobs assisted these men to the
3
Linnaean Association of Pennsylvania College, The, The Literary Record and Journal of the Linnaean
Association of Pennsylvania College (Gettysburg: H.C. Neinstedt, 1844-1845); “Jacobs” file, Civilian Accounts Files,
Battle of Gettysburg Research Room, Adams County Historical Society, Gettysburg, Pa.; Henry E. Horn, ed. Memoirs of
Henry Eyster Jacobs: Notes on a Life of a Churchman (Huntington, Pa: Church Management Service, 1974), 54-56; For
more on the battle around campus and Henry Louis Baugher, see John M. Rudy, Gettysburg College and the Battle of
Gettysburg (Gettysburg: Gettysburg College, 2008).
summit of the building and helped them survey th land, pointing out particularly
Cemetery Hill to the south of town as the crux of the position. As battle began swirling
around the campus classes were quickly curtailed. Students evacuated to the town to
shelter in basements from the oncoming tide.”
Image: Henry Louis Baugher, C. 1862, Gettysburg College Special Collections
“Professor Henry Louis Baugher, president of the college, who himself had lost his son
Nesbitt Baugher after the battle of Shiloh a year earlier, retired to his large home on the
campus, only to find it filled with Federal soldiers: wounded whom he and his family
would minister to in the next three days.”
“Soon Michael Jacobs' classroom as well as all of the other rooms inside the college
edifice, Linnaen Hall and any other available building on campus became hospitals,
operating rooms, triage centers, places where the wounded and dying men, mostly
Confederates, were being brought.”
Image: Michael Jacobs, Gettysburg College Special Collections
Transition: “Jacobs, after assisting the Signal Corps men to the cupola, finding the
campus untenable, quickly ran back to his home at the corner of Washington and Middle
Streets. Here he and his family would wait out the three days of war. But Professor
Jacobs and his meticulous mind could not sit idle for those three days. At our next and
final stop, we'll discuss Michael Jacobs' experience during the battle and how it shapes
the history of the history of Gettysburg.”
Directions: “To reach our final stop, retrace your steps back to the corner of Railroad
and Washington Streets. Continue south on Washington Street. Crossing Chambersburg
street at the light, continue one block further to the corner of Middle Street and South
Washington Street. On your right, on the north-west corner, is a large brick two and a
half story structure that currently houses a law office. This is the home of Professor
Michael Jacobs. Turn me off now, and turn me back on when we reach Professor
Jacobs' house.”
Stop 4:
Professor Jacobs' House4
North East Corner of South Washington and Middle Streets
“Walking back to this spot, Jacobs' home, the Professor no doubt got caught in the
maelstrom that was Chambersburg Street. As the Federal line faltered, and broke
through the town, citizens around town took shelter in their basements. Professor
Jacobs, his wife, and their children, along with refugees from the Fairfield Gap waited in
the basement for three days as the battle raged around their ears.”
Image: Barricade Across Gettysburg Street, Library of Congress, Prints and Photos Division
“The corner of Washington and Middle Street was the Confederate line. Crossing the
street was a large barricade which had been erected out of found goods: wagons, barrels,
anything the Confederates could put into service to shelter behind. The soldiers went
even so far as demolishing a stone wall and using its pieces to create a barricade. The
Jacobs family, sheltering in their cellar, could only sit and listen as bullets flew through
their shutters and the dead bodies of Confederates fell on their cellar doors.”
Image: Henry Eyster Jacobs (C. 1862), Gettysburg College Special Collections
“Jacobs' son, Henry Eyster, wrote of the experience in the basement, saying that, 'the
ladies managed to make some biscuit, and to make a batter of flour and water as a
substitute for bread, which, with raspberries which I picked when there was no firing,
formed a good part of our subsistence.' Henry Eyster Jacobs, who had graduated from
the college in 1862, took keen interest in the Confederates outside their windows. He
wrote that, 'on Thursday morning [that would be July 2nd], our Georgia neighbors were
astir bright and early. Our interest in them grew when we saw how many were reading
their New Testaments.”
“On Friday, July 3rd, the morning was quiet. In the afternoon, as the Professor drew out
his watch at 1:07 pm, two signal guns fired from the south of town, and the Confederate
artillery let loose a barrage on the Union lines.”
Image: Henry Eyster Jacobs (C. 1862), Gettysburg College Special Collections
“'One hundred and fifty guns were thundering at once. The earth rocked. The air
vibrated with the scream of the shell, and the discords of their explosions,' wrote
Henry Eyster Jacobs in his memoirs. And then all at once it stops. There's silence.”
Image: Michael Jacobs, Gettysburg College Special Collections
“The Professor, 'cannot be induced to remain with [his family.] He felt by intuition what
was coming. He has the glass with him [the college telescope] in the garret. There he
saw the line of Picket (sic) forming on Seminary Ridge in magnificent array. He
watched it as it moved steadily forward. At last it is lost to sight behind projecting
buildings. Then comes the roar of artillery and the crash of small arms. The din is
resumed, only the tone is not so loud. It is not long.'”
4
Henry E. Horn, ed. Memoirs of Henry Eyster Jacobs: Notes on a Life of a Churchman (Huntington, Pa:
Church Management Service, 1974), 56-65; Various letters from the Michael Jacobs Manuscript Collection, Special
Collections, Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, Pa.; M. Jacobs to A. Lincoln, 24 October 1863, Library of Congress,
American Memory Collection;
“Jacobs sat on his roof and witnessed Pickett's Charge, and something inside of him
changed. Jacobs, meticulous in nature, an observer at heart, became an observer of men
that moment not just an observer of natural forces.”
Images: Various Brady and Gardner Shots of Battlefield Dead, Library of Congress, Prints and
Photos Division
“For the weeks and months after the battle, the citizens of Gettysburg worked at
ministering to the wounded, cleaning up their town, recovering from a massive battle
that inflicted 10,000 dead and 50,000 casualties. Michael Jacobs, along with his son,
undertook a different work. Theirs was to catalogue and maintain a record of what had
occurred around the borough of Gettysburg.”
“Across the fields he had once used for classes, Jacobs now found strewn the dead and
the detritus of battle. Their hats, their knapsacks, soldier's canteens and guns, each with
insignia on them. Names carved into stocks of weapons, unit numbers painted on the
side of a canteen, a Corps badge on the top of a hat signifying what unit a man was with.
Jacobs and his son, along with the college's surveying equipment, used this evidence to
create a detailed picture of what had occurred on the fields surrounding Gettysburg.
Jacobs also recorded detailed notes of troop movements to and fro, through the borough
of Gettysburg and from place to place around.”
Image: Title Page of Notes on the Rebel Invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania, 1863 and
various textual details.
“Originally intended for his family, these notes would later on be published as Notes on
the Rebel Invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania and the Battle of Gettysburg by
Professor M. Jacobs. What makes Jacobs' work unique is the speed at which he
accomplishes it. By October 1863, just a scant few months after the battle had ended, as
wounded were still in town and as plans were being made to inaugurate a cemetery for
the dead, Jacobs was putting his work to print. By the middle of October, Jacobs was
beginning to be seen as an expert on the Battle of Gettysburg. He was receiving letters
from across the North asking for information on what had occurred in the town on three
days in July.”
“Not only citizens, but soldiers were requesting Jacobs' information, and later his book,
as a reference book from which to write their after action reports of the battle.”
Image: M. Jacobs to A. Lincoln, 24 October 1863, Library of Congress, American Memory
Collection
“On October 24th, 1863, Professor Jacobs sent his book to, most likely, its most
important reader. In his letter he writes, 'Two days ago, I mailed to your address a small
volume entitled, "Notes on the Rebel Invasion of Maryland & Pennsylvania,
accompanied by a Map of the Battlefield." The notes were at first prepared for the
private use of myself & family, but published at the earnest solicitation of many of my
friends. The Map was constructed from actual measurements made by myself & son.
Please accept the volume as a token of the high regard, I entertain towards you
personally & officially. Your obedient Servant, Michael Jacobs.' That letter to the White
House in Washington, D.C. Where the copy of the notes on the rebel invasion was
delivered to Abraham Lincoln.”
Image: Title Page of Notes on the Rebel Invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania, 1863
“Jacobs' history is not complete. It isn't the best book about the battle. But it is the first.
The first in a long lineage of histories of the Battle of Gettysburg.”
Image: Michael Jacobs, Gettysburg College Special Collections
“And Jacobs' curiosity fueled that first history. A man who had curiosity for the actions
of science on the world around him transformed himself into an historian, first an
amateur and then a professional, creating a work that was the cornerstone of the study of
the battle of Gettysburg.”
“Thank You for taking this short walk around the borough of Gettysburg and
investigating who Michael Jacobs was and why he was important to this town and to the
study of history. I hope you've enjoyed this tour, and can see why Jacobs' unique
curiosity is still important to us today and has had a profound effect on this town.”