The Soldier's Photo Behind Gettysburg's Civil War Orphanage
A daytime walk through the 1836 house on Cemetery Hill that sheltered soldiers' orphans from 1866 until a scandal closed it.
The brick house at 777 Baltimore Street is known mostly after dark, as the haunted orphanage on Gettysburg's ghost tours. This 45-minute daytime tour, run by the same company, takes its documented history in order: an 1836 home on Cemetery Hill caught up in the battle, a dead sergeant's photograph that set off a national search, eleven years as a home for soldiers' orphans, and the scandal that closed it.
The cellar the night tours are built around is part of this tour too, seen in daylight and placed inside the whole timeline.
Tickets are sold per person for a set start time: adult pricing from age 13, a lower child price for ages 6 to 12, and no charge on the booking page for children 5 and under. As of October 25, 2026, the booking calendar shows three Saturdays left this year, October 31, November 7 and November 14, each with tours at 1:00, 2:15 and 3:30 PM. The next listed dates start in June 2027.
Historic Soldiers Orphans Homestead Tour in GettysburgA 45-minute guided tour of the 1836 orphans' homestead on Cemetery Hill, departing from the Gettysburg Tour Center at 778 Baltimore Street.www.viator.comA Field Hospital Below the Cemetery Gate
The house went up in 1836 at the north foot of Cemetery Hill, and the listing places it in the crossfire of the Union and Confederate armies. It names the owner during the fighting as Captain John Myers, a veteran of the War of 1812, and says the house served as a field hospital for the wounded and dying.
Christina Rowand, who manages the building's tours, cites the memoirs of Elizabeth Thorn as describing wounded and dead soldiers inside the house during the battle. Thorn kept the Evergreen Cemetery gatehouse up the slope, and she and her father went on to bury about one hundred of the fallen.
Three Children in One Photograph
Sergeant Amos Humiston of the 154th New York Infantry was killed on July 1, 1863, the first day of the battle. He carried no identification, only a photograph of his three children. Dr. John Francis Bourns, a volunteer physician from Philadelphia, had the children described in newspapers across the country, and Philinda Humiston recognized them in Portville, New York.
The fundraising that followed helped open the National Soldiers' Orphans' Homestead in this house in October 1866, and Philinda and her children lived there. In June 1867 the photographer C. J. Tyson photographed Ulysses S. Grant out front, with the girls on one side and the boys on the other.
The Matron, the Trial and the Cellar
The guides describe well-supported early years, with the children fed, schooled and marching to the National Cemetery each Memorial Day to lay flowers. Their absence from the 1876 procession raised alarm. The Grand Army of the Republic investigated, and the matron Rosa J. Carmichael was charged with cruelty to an orphan, convicted of aggravated assault and given a twenty-dollar fine. The orphanage closed in December 1877.
The cellar room called the pit, where children were allegedly confined, is where the ghost stories gather. The conviction is on record, while a local history page notes that not every lurid detail in the legend is confirmed by official records.
Kids, Steps and Service Animals
The material is grim. One June 2026 visitor wrote that "visitors should prepare to hear some pretty horrific stuff", and a July visitor found the staff "patient with kids." Given the building's age, part of the tour is not wheelchair accessible, by the operator's account as reported by the Gettysburg Times, though the listing marks the tour as suitable for all fitness levels and stroller-friendly. Only service animals are permitted.
📍 Check in at the counter inside the Gettysburg Tour Center, 778 Baltimore Street, at least 15 minutes before your start time. Parking is on site there, and the homestead stands across the street at 777. Cancel at least 24 hours ahead for a full refund.
Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, and those afternoon tours are the daylight way into the house the ghost stories are built on.