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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
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CONTACT: Jay
Purdy |
State Rep. Harry
Readshaw |
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Readshaw to announce big victory
for preservation at Gettysburg
HARRISBURG, Nov. 16 – At 10:30 a.m. Friday, Nov. 18 at the Daniel Lady Farm, 986 Hanover Road just east of Gettysburg, state Rep. Harry Readshaw, D-Allegheny, will host a news conference to announce the success of a crusade to save the 145-acre historic battlefield farm…likely to be the last large parcel of significant undeveloped battlefield property around Gettysburg to be preserved.
Readshaw has been a supporter of the Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association in its six-year crusade to save the farm, virtually surrounded by properties zoned for residential or commercial development.
Joining Readshaw will be Sidney Kuhn of the Land Conservancy of Adams County, which played a crucial role in lining up the funding package; Kathi Schue, president of the Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association; James Lighthizer, president of the Civil War Preservation Trust; and Barry Frantz of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, representing the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee met with officers of his army’s left flank at the Daniel Lady Farm on the first night of the battle and the troops that assaulted Union forces on Culp’s Hill formed up on the farm just east of the farm house.
Until the famed “Pickett’s Charge” by Confederates to culminate the battle, Union Gen. George Meade was preparing to attack the Southern flank at the Lady Farm.
A portion of the farm was part of the post-battle Camp Letterman field hospital which treated thousands of Union and Confederate wounded.
The all-volunteer GBPA will use the package of grants to pay off the remaining mortgage on the farm through a U.S. Department of Agriculture conservation easement grant obtained through the Adams County Land Conservancy, along with a grant from the Civil War Preservation Trust.
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