Gettysburg farmhouse yields relics

The historic farmhouse provided much over the years.

Its well cooled Union soldiers marching to Gettysburg. Its kitchen was raided by Confederates, the tables and chairs burned as firewood.

Decades later, the lawn was used by crews filming the movie "Gettysburg." Thousands have tramped the grounds for battle re-enactments.

But the famous farmhouse kept secrets, too.

A collection of historic artifacts remained hidden beneath the attic floorboards for decades.

Only recently did construction workers discover letters from the 1880s. In one letter, the writer complains in elegant script of a $3 bill for a doctor's visit and the $1 expense for medicine.

A rusty straight-razor was pulled from beneath the floorboards. A tin of witch hazel, used to treat sores and blisters during the Civil War, also was found during the remodeling work.

Construction workers discovered more - a red canister of "mild mustard plasters," which promised to cure everything from earaches to asthma. They found half-a-dozen glass bottles, once containing salves and ointments, and with the tell-tale brown glass and wide opening of 19th Century medicines.

The most curious find, perhaps, was the negative of a glass-plate photograph.

It shows a fat pig, clearly the prize of the farm. A lab analysis dated the image to the 1880s.

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Gettysburg farmhouse yields relics