Homes and Shops in Gettysburg 5/9/2009

These are some of the lovely homes and cute shops located in downtown Gettysburg. The first 9 pictures are of the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg. The progressive creativity that marked the 1826 founding of the oldest continuing Lutheran seminary in the Americas became the red thread that runs through the 174-year Gettysburg tradition of preparing leaders for the church’s mission. In 1832, the Seminary moved from modest quarters in the center of town to its present location on a ridge overlooking the borough from the west.
Samuel Simon Schmucker, a leading churchman in American Lutheran circles for three mid-19th century decades, founded the seminary and neighboring Gettysburg College to fill the specific need for American-trained clergy. Schmucker also led in a number of the voluntary societies of the Evangelical Protestantism of his time, serving the cause of social justice, Bible promotion, and mission outreach. An articulate Lutheran anti-slavery activist, he supported the Underground Railroad by harboring fugitive slaves in his barn and home. He encouraged Daniel Alexander Payne, who was the first African-American to receive his theological education in a Lutheran seminary (1837). Payne later became a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the first president of Wilberforce University.
In 1838 Schmucker pioneered a call for greater Christian unity in his "Fraternal Appeal to the American Churches." But waves of new Lutheran immigrants intent on building their own church bodies, together with a growing concern among Lutherans in America for confessional purity, contributed to a climate of suspicion on confessional matters, even within Gettysburg's own constituency of pastors and churches. Strong resistance to Schmucker's confessional proposals eventually resulted in the split of the faculty and the creation in 1864 of a new seminary in Philadelphia. These two constituencies, the General Synod and the General Council, together with the United Synod of the South (and its seminary) came together again in 1918 in the formation of the United Lutheran Church in America, making the three seminaries partners in the same ecclesial organization and prefiguring today's Eastern Cluster.
On July 1, 1863, the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, the campus became a battleground and then the center of the Confederate line for two days. The cupola of the Old Dorm served as an observation tower first for Union and then for the Confederate officers. From that day and for two additional months, the rest of the building served as a hospital for the wounded from both sides. Occupying soldiers made a special effort to scatter and destroy the papers and books of the anti-slavery Schmucker. Today a newly formed Seminary Ridge Historic Preservation Foundation, closely connected to the Seminary, seeks to preserve three historic campus buildings and provide historic interpretation for the public.
It happened to be graduation day when we drove through the campus and took our pictures and if you notice the one picture of "Luther" which is a bronze statue of Martin Luther the “Gettysburg Seminary Luther” statue which is an original design depicting the great Reformer as “the teacher” in a relaxed, seated position surrounded by books and documents, with the open Bible on his lap. He was all dressed up and we found out it is tradition dressing Luther on the eve of the Luther Colloquy and is a tradition going back into the 1950's. Each year, the class of arriving students search their closets for the appropriate attire of the seated Reformer. Note the way he is dressed.