Apr 11, 2025
Representatives from the U.S. Army Fort Belvoir 55th Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit and Gettysburg National Military Park rangers last week marked possible Civil War artifacts in the field behind the William Patterson Farm on Taneytown Road.
Last fall plans were made to extend the paved trail from the visitor’s center to Spangler Farm, which would cut through the Patterson Farm, said Jason Martz, Gettysburg National Military Park communications specialist.
We are doing this for “future visitors to be able to walk, bike ride and enjoy a more natural setting and enjoy more of the battlefield than ever before,” said Martz.
The field was marked where artifacts might lie buried, Martz said.
“Flags are where there was a GPS ping for something that was detected and noted as an archeological discovery,” he said.
Big machinery can’t go into the field before they have gone over the area with a fine-tooth comb, he said.
They will “identify on site, bag the item, take it to a lab, gently clean it, begin to assess what it is and then cobble together a story of what may have been there,” Martz said.
They will then go back to written records to see who was there and when, said Martz.
Events such as this are why the rules and regulations exist the way they do and “why we can’t just have anyone out metal detecting,” he said.
The walkaway project is expected to start in earnest in May or June, he said.
Readers may contact Elizabeth Mulewich at emulewich@gettysburgtimes.com.