Kris Heister named superintendent of Gettysburg NMP and Eisenhower NHS

NPS News Release Date: March 12, 2024

Contact: John Harlan Warren, 215-908-3159

Gettysburg, Pa. – National Park Service (NPS) Deputy Regional Director Cinda Waldbuesser today announced the selection of Kristina (Kris) Heister as the superintendent for Gettysburg National Military Park and Eisenhower National Historic Site. Heister has worked at Gettysburg and Eisenhower as deputy superintendent since 2020. She begins her new assignment on March 24, 2024.

“Kris brings a wealth of National Park Service experience with a deep commitment to community engagement, resource protection and employee development,” said Waldbuesser. “Her knowledge of and commitment to protecting both cultural and natural resources while enhancing visitor experience make her an excellent choice to lead these two important parks.”

“Over the last four years, I have been amazed by the dedication of my colleagues, our partners and our community,” said Heister. “Their collective commitment to preserving and protecting these hallowed grounds inspires me everyday. I look forward to continuing to work together and maintaining an open dialogue with our partners and our community to address both the challenges and opportunities the future holds for these exceptional places.”

As the current deputy superintendent, Heister is already a key leader on the park’s management team, providing oversight for all aspects of park operations. Twice she has performed detail assignments as acting superintendent of the two parks, first in 2019 and again in 2023-2024. Before coming to Gettysburg, she served as superintendent of Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River, as chief of Natural Resources for the NPS Northeast Region, and as Natural Resource Program Manager at Valley Forge National Historical Park. During her three decades-long career, she has worked at small, medium and large parks throughout the country, with almost half her career in historical parks.

A lifelong Pennsylvanian, Heister has deep connections to both the Civil War and to the Eisenhower family. Her family counts 18 members who fought in the Civil War for the Union, although none at the Battle of Gettysburg. In 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower sent a signed note to her great-grandmother for her 100th birthday which is a family treasure. The favorite Heister family meal is a recipe Julie and David Eisenhower served for Christmas one year, which was found in the local newspaper. She cares deeply for the hallowed grounds of Gettysburg and the home of a remarkable military general and president.

In her spare time, she enjoys the company of two beautiful coonhounds, Boone and Scarlett, and taking care of her 90-year-old mother.

New Ron Kirkwood book to be Released in June - "Tell Mother Not to Worry"

“Tell Mother Not to Worry” - to be released June 15th - profiles scores of additional soldiers and offers new information on events and experiences at the farm, including the mortally wounded Confederate Brig. Gen. Lewis Armistead.

This sequel to “Too Much for Human Endurance” also includes another chapter on the often-overlooked First Division II Corps hospital at Granite Schoolhouse, a wounded list for that division, and a chapter on Col. Edward E. Cross, who died at Granite Schoolhouse in the middle of Spangler land.

Kirkwood concludes by continuing the story of George and Elizabeth Spangler and their four children after the war and ends with an uplifting chapter on their modern-day descendants and how they were found after the release of “Too Much for Human Endurance.”

With this sequel, Kirkwood brings further understanding of the lives of the soldiers and their families and completes the story of George and Elizabeth Spangler’s historic farm.

Kirkwood has been a presenter at our CWRT and led the group on a personal tour of the Spangler Farm. He retired after a 40-year career as an editor and writer in newspapers and magazines including USA TODAY, the Baltimore Sun, the Harrisburg (PA) Patriot-News, and the York (PA) Daily Record. Ronald edited national magazines for USA TODAY Sports and was NFL editor for USA TODAY Sports Weekly. He has won numerous state, regional, and national awards for his writing and editing and he managed the copy desk in Harrisburg when the newspaper won a Pulitzer Prize in 2012. Ronald has been a Gettysburg Foundation docent at The George Spangler Farm Field Hospital Site since it opened in 2013, and he explores the Gettysburg battlefield dozens of times a year.

African Burial Ground National Monument Explores New York's History Of Slavery

The outdoor portion of African Burial Ground National Monument in Manhattan includes the Ancestral Chamber and the Ancestral Reinterment Ground/Jennifer Bain

By Jennifer Bain - February 1st, 2024

National Parks Traveler

For all those who were lost

For all those who were stolen

For all those who were left behind

For all those who were not forgotten

***

In a sacred sliver of outdoor space near City Hall in Lower Manhattan, those four sentences are etched onto a 24-foot-tall green granite monument alongside a heart-shaped Sankofa, a Ghanian symbol that means “learn from the past to prepare for the future.”

The dramatic memorial forces us to acknowledge the role that enslaved Africans played in building New York City. It’s a shameful story that might have been forgotten had workers building a federal office tower in 1991 not unearthed human remains 24 feet below the street.

All told, 419 human skeletal remains were exhumed, studied and eventually reinterred after a public outcry. That’s only a fraction of the estimated 15,000 enslaved and free Africans that were laid to rest between the mid-1600s and 1795 in a cemetery here that once spanned 6.6 acres or what’s now five city blocks.

The rediscovery sparked a grassroots movement to protect this hallowed ground and tell this important story. In 1993, 0.34 acres of the cemetery became the first below-ground New York City landmark and a national historic landmark. On Feb. 27, 2006, the African Burial Ground National Monument was proclaimed by President George W. Bush.

“Do you know why you just had to go through that airport-style security — put all your stuff through the X-ray machine and go through the metal detector?” ranger Bethany Burnett asked when I joined two other people for a public orientation tour in January. “This is a federal office building. So, I know it’s hard for people to picture when we’re in this museum, but on the other side of the wall, there’s an office building that houses the IRS, FBI, EPA and federal courts.”

This National Park Service unit — one of 12 surrounding the port of New York City — is divided over two separate spaces. The outdoor memorial is at African Burial Ground Way and Duane Street. The visitor center is around the corner on the ground floor of the Ted Weiss Federal Building at 290 Broadway and has its own entrance.

During the 30-minute tour, Burnett brought the sobering story of slavery to life.

“This is the oldest and largest non-excavated burial ground in North America for free and enslaved Africans,” she said to begin. “Its rediscovery in 1991 really changed how we talk about the history of New York. Often when we talk about slavery, we’re focusing on the south or we’re focusing on plantations or we talk about the Caribbean. Often we don’t talk about slavery in northern urban areas like New York itself, and yet the rediscovery of this burial ground really showed the prevalence of slavery in norther urban centers like New York.”

Africans were captured and brought to the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam on slave ships from different regions with diverse cultures, religions and languages. In 1664, the British took over New Amsterdam and renamed it New York.

Before the American Revolution, the NPS says, New York had more enslaved Africans than any other colony in the north. Along with free Africans, they were forced into manual labor. Men cleared farmland, filled swamps and built structures and roads. Women sewed, cooked, harvested and cared for their owners’ children as well as their own. Children carried water and firewood.

These enslaved people usually died of physical strain, malnutrition, punishment and diseases like yellow fever and smallpox instead of old age. But they were buried with CLICK HERE TO READ THE COMPLETE STORY

Thaddeus Stevens museum will open in Gettysburg

Story from the Gettysburg Connection
January 29, 2024 by Ross Hetrick

With the help of members and supporters, the Thaddeus Stevens Society has reached its goal of raising $28,000 for a new museum. The society has leased a storefront at 46 Chambersburg Street in downtown Gettysburg for the first Thaddeus Stevens museum. 

The grand opening is planned for April 4, 2024, the 232nd birthday of Stevens and the twenty-fifth  anniversary of the founding of the Stevens Society. Planning for the event is in the initial stage and further details will be announced in coming months.

The 815 square-foot space will feature the Society’s extensive collection of Stevens artifacts including Stevens letters, period newspapers and stoves made at iron mills owned by Stevens. There will also be hundreds of books and documents available for research on Stevens. 

The storefront is across the street from where Stevens’s home was located at 51 Chambersburg Street until it was torn down a hundred years ago. Stevens lived in Gettysburg from 1816 to 1842. While there, Stevens became a prominent anti-slavery and pro-education state legislator and operated two iron mills in the area. He then moved to Lancaster, PA in 1842 where he was elected to Congress and was instrumental in the legislative destruction of slavery and became the Father of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which requires equal treatment under the law and extends civil rights to the state level.

The storefront  is one door to the west of the historic Christ Lutheran Church, where Stevens rented a pew, as he did in other churches in Gettysburg and Lancaster.

Adams County Historical Society Presents Two Exciting Programs in February

Frederick Douglass on Sat Feb 3rd
& Trauma and the Civil War on Thu Feb 15

Join Frederick Douglass, the former slave, writer, orator, and abolitionist (interpreted by Nathan M. Richardson), for an hour long conversation, reflecting on his life and times including slavery and the Civil War. Participants are invited to bring questions for Mr. Douglass on any topic from the period, including his relationship with Abraham Lincoln.

This program is in collaboration with the Lincoln Cemetery Project Association and will be held on Saturday, February 3rd at 7 p.m. at the Adams County Historical Society (625 Biglerville Road). The program is free for ACHS members and $10/general admission.

Reserve Tickets

Is PTSD a barrier to understanding Civil War trauma? Join historian Peter Carmichael as he pursues an answer to this question on Thursday, February 15th at 7 p.m. at the Adams County Historical Society (625 Biglerville Road). Through a range of letters and reports from soldiers and physicians, Carmichael will shed light on the distinctive ways through which Americans during the Civil War understood battlefield trauma.

Tickets are free for ACHS members and $10/general admission.

Reserve Tickets

GAR Museum Free Zoom Program for Sunday, February 4, 2024

THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC (G.A.R.) CIVIL WAR MUSEUM & ARCHIVE

 

Presents a New Program via ZOOM 

 Sunday, February 4, 2024 at 1pm

African Americans and the Gettysburg Campaign:

The Many Ways that African Americans Affected and Were Affected by the Gettysburg Campaign” 

By James Paradis

This presentation examines the black residents of the town who lived “on the fault line” between slavery and freedom, and the impact of the battle on them.  This talk gives an account of the unheralded, but important, part played by the thousands of African Americans who accompanied both armies to the battlefield.  We will also tell the little-known story of Black volunteers from Pennsylvania who engaged the Southern invaders in combat during the invasion.  Finally, we will consider the response of African Americans who came forward during the aftermath of the battle.

James Paradis teaches at Arcadia University.  He recently retired from Doane Academy where he served as Dean of the Upper School and taught history for 35 years.  He has authored two books.  His doctoral dissertation at Temple University became "Strike the Blow for Freedom: The 6th United States Colored Infantry in the Civil War."  His second book, "African Americans and the Gettysburg Campaign," with foreword by Edwin C. Bearss, Chief Historian Emeritus, National Park Service, was published by Scarecrow Press, a division of Rowman and Littlefield, 2005.  An expanded Sesquicentennial Edition was released in September 2012.

Dr. Paradis has served for many years on the board of directors of Citizens for the Restoration of Historical La Mott, which preserves of the site of Camp William Penn, the first and largest training camp for Black soldiers in the Civil War.  He served as historical consultant and narrator for the documentary film, "Black Soldiers in Blue: The Story of Camp William Penn," released in 2009.  In 2011 the NAACP of Cheltenham, PA awarded him a Certificate of Recognition for his contributions preserving African American history.

Please send a request to reserve a virtual seat for this outstanding presentation by replying to this e-mail at

garmuslib1866@gmail.com 

 

You will be sent a link with a password that will enable you to access the program within 24 hours of the start of the presentation. 

 

We will make every effort to reply, but G-Mail may be slow and our volunteer may be called away during the day before or the morning of February 4, 2024

As a lover of history, you know how critical it is to keep history alive, especially today!  We very much appreciate your continued support for the GAR Civil War Museum & Archive

A FREE virtual program online

GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC MUSEUM & ARCHIVE
In its new location:
8110 Frankford Ave. (Holmesburg - N.E. Philadelphia)
 www.garmuslib.org

Central Virginia Battlefields Trust Spring Seminar - Saturday, March 9th.

WAR IN THE BALANCE

The Central Virginia Battlefields Trust will host its inaugural Spring Seminar on Saturday, March 9, 2024, at the historic Wilderness Baptist Church’s fellowship hall from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

The seminar is focused on the often ignored but historically important events in central and northern Virginia that occurred between the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863 and the Battle of the Wilderness a year later.

  Speakers include noted historians and authors Mike Block, Dan Davis, John Hennessy, Kevin Pawlak and Ted Savas.

​ Interesting and rare Civil War relics will be on hand for viewing and discussion courtesy of CVBT Board member Paul Scott!

​ Select authors will have books for sale.

  A box lunch is included in the $40 registration fee. 

CLICK BELOW FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO REGISTER

​ Purchase tickets

Lawsuit Filed to Stop Manassas Data Center

A lawsuit was filed Friday in a bid to prevent a massive data processing facility from being built next to Manassas National Battlefield Park/Kurt Repanshek file

National Parks Traveler has posted that a lawsuit was filed to stop the data center recently approved next to Manassas Battlefield.

A lawsuit has been filed in a bid to halt a massive data processing center from being built next to Manassas National Battlefield Park in Virginia.

Prince William County supervisors in December voted 4-3 to rezone 2,100 acres next to the battlefield, which was the setting for the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas) on July 21, 1861, and the Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas) over nearly the same ground during August 28-30, 1862, so the PW Digital Gateway could be built there.

“The Manassas Battlefield is a national treasure and the very definition of hallowed ground,” said David Duncan, president of the American Battlefield Trust, which joined the lawsuit with nine area residents. “Hundreds of thousands of people visit this national park every year, generating tourism dollars for the community and providing local residents with recreational trails and open space. It is reckless in the extreme to jeopardize this historic sanctuary over a development that could easily be built elsewhere in the state.”

A release from the Trust described the planned data center as the "world's largest."

The 81-page lawsuit, filed Friday, claims the county failed to consider the enivonmental fallout of the project, ignored county regulations in rezoning the land, and that special use permits for the project were not filed. A press release from the Trust states that the proposed data center "would overshadow famed Brawner Farm where, at the Second Battle of Manassas in August 1862, Union and Confederate forces faced off against one another in horrific combat. The fallow fields that were the launching point for one of the most devasting and decisive assaults of the Civil War could soon be blanketed with as many as thirty-seven data centers — eight-story, drab concrete-and-steel behemoths that would loom over the battlefield park."

“Even a month after the vote, it remains dumbfounding that Prince William County ignored its own professional staff, its planning commission, hundreds of concerned citizens, and pleas from the National Park Service and the historic preservation community to protect one of the County’s most famous and treasured landmarks,” said Duncan in the release.

In reviewing the proposal in 2022, Justin Patton, the Prince William County archaeologist, wrote that the project would "have a high potential to adversely affect cultural resources in the following forms: indirect effects such as Audio, and Visual; and direct effects in the destruction of the resource. Transportation improvements necessary to implement land use and zoning changes, will likely have an indirect and direct effects on our history as well."

Among those who voiced opposition to the data center was filmmaker Ken Burns, who in January 2022 wrote the county supervisors to urge them to oppose the project.

"As a student and chronicler of American history for more than 40 years, I can attest to how fragile our precious heritage is and how susceptible it can be to the ravages of 'progress,'" Burns said in that letter. "I learned while making my documentary series The Civil War in the late 1980s—and again when I made my 2009 series on the history of the national parks—how crucial the preservation of our historic landscapes is, and I fear the devastating impact the development of up to 2,133 acres of data centers will have on this hallowed ground."

Gettysburg Film Festival Features Ken Burns in April

 Gettysburg Film Festival

Internationally acclaimed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns will return to Gettysburg on April 5th and 6th, 2024 for a festival celebrating his nearly five-decade-long career. Joined by friends and collaborators, Burns will present excerpts and full-length films that examine fundamental themes of freedom and democracy, consequential elections throughout history, and our shared identity as Americans.

The Adams County Historical Society is a producer and co-host of this festival.

Tickets are on sale NOW! Click the button below to reserve your seats before the festival sells out.

Reserve Tickets

Schedule

Ken Burns: Lessons from Lincoln – Friday, April 5th at 7 pm

Gettysburg Area High School, 1130 Old Harrisburg Road, Gettysburg

Ken Burns: Our Democracy Challenged – Saturday, April 6th at 10 a.m.

Majestic Theater, 25 Carlisle Street, Gettysburg

Ken Burns: Consequential Elections – Saturday, April 6th at 2:30 p.m.

Majestic Theater, 25 Carlisle Street, Gettysburg

Also:
An Evening with Jay Ungar and Molly Mason – Saturday, April 6th at 7:30 p.m.

Adams County Historical Society, 625 Biglerville Road, Gettysburg

Storytelling on YouTube: A Live Episode with The History Underground and Vlogging Through History – Sunday, April 7th at 1 p.m.

Adams County Historical Society, 625 Biglerville Road, Gettysburg