True Haunting Ghost Stories From Gettysburg, PA | The Tillie Pierce House (Ep 377)

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More and more soldiers began flooding the area, and 15-year-old Tilly was in shock. And Tilly watched as limbs were literally sawed off [sighs] and bullets were probed for and removed. And right in the heart of town stands a house that has absorbed the history and the energy of the past. This is the Tilly Pierce House Inn. Right in the heart of Gettysburg. Yeah,

very spooky.

Hey. Hi. What's up? This is Two Girls One Ghost. Two girls, one ghost. And we are your ghostesses. That is Karen.

Hello.

I'm Sabrina. And uh I did something. I

Boston Tea Party Museum

did something.

That's so ominous. It could be anything.

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I know. As I said it, I was like, I I'm going to make this dramatic. [laughter]

What did I do?

I couldn't I couldn't begin to guess.

What the heck did Sabrina do?

Everyone take to Reddit. [laughter]

Your guess was in there.

Freaking rebelled against the British and I threw tea into the harbor.

You did the tea. [laughter] The tea throwing.

I did tea. some tea party experience.

The museum or whatever it's called. I can't remember the name.

I went so cute.

And it was the most fun. Glory. Like it was s such a good experience.

Their costumes.

You get you get like you walk in, they give you like a little card of who you are and it's based on like real people who attended the town hall and then like that night threw tea into the harbor and I'm pretty sure like and they you can like scan a QR code and learn all about your person. [laughter] It was so cool. I've actually never done it. I've just seen I've watched people do it, but I've never gone.

Oh my god. Highly recommend.

Okay, it's going to be on my bucket list.

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It was so fun. That's so cute. Threw tea in the harbor along with the kids. I was like,

you threw kids in the harbor? [laughter]

I told you I did something.

Didn't you see her on the news? It's [laughter] all over.

Woman throws children into the sea. children at Harvard. [laughter]

But it was such a fun experience and I felt myself being like in a very historical mode. Like I was mood mood. The word is mood. Mood mood. I like to moo. Move it. Move it. What [laughter] is happening?

Ever since you threw the tea into the harbor, it's changed you.

Also, ever since we ate our sandwiches and had a lunch break

powered by [laughter] Jersey Mike finished 3 minutes ago. chaos. My brain is awake and it's just spewing words out my mouth.

I feel like a lot of people give crap to people who like do touristy things in their city, but Boston is impossible to not be a tourist in because it's so historic and it's there's so much like joy to the history and just like the fun

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things. Like I used to walk by every single day the great molasses flood plaque and yes, I would stop and read it many times a week. It's impossible to ignore it what's around you. But also like every place is historic. Like I went to the Union Oyster House. It's the oldest operating restaurant in American history. And John F. Kennedy used to go there. There's the Kennedy booth.

It's haunted.

Right.

And I give crap to those of you going to the bathroom. I go, "Mr. President,

it's me. It's me."

But yeah, I give crap to anyone who mocks doing touristy things.

What are you doing if you're not doing touristy things?

Well, I think it's also like just what a way to add eating at a restaurant. What a way to add whimsy into your life.

Yeah.

And to experience the like part of your city. Yeah.

And it's only touristy because we've deemed it to be touristy, but really you're just experiencing history.

It's historical, not touristy.

Yes. You're learning something.

Yeah. And learning is great.

Mhm.

And that's what we're going to do today.

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But no, because I was feeling historical and also this episode comes out in June, right before Fourth of July. And I wouldn't call myself the most patriotic person. Like I don't own any like red, white, and blue striped situation. Like Fourth of July, I'm wearing white, you know, despite not being patriarch patriarchal. I'm also not patriarchal. I'm not the patriarch. [laughter]

Not the patriarchy.

Men, children, tea, all in the harbor.

Go [laughter] in the harbor.

But it is the 250th anniversary of America coming up. So, I was like, all of these things combined is what has created the perfect storm of what today's episode is. And we're visiting a very prominent place in American history. Gettysburg and a very haunted place.

The like what is not haunted in Gettysburg.

Good question.

A huge place. It's a haunting every step.

That should be their tagline.

Haunting every step.

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Gettysburg. A haunting every step. [laughter]

Truly though. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

introduction to Tille Pierce & Gettysburg

You know the name. It isn't just one of the most historically significant places in America. It is also widely considered one of the most haunted cities on Earth. Today, it is a small, quiet town, rolling hills, old stone buildings, some of which have stood for centuries. But beneath that quiet facade, there's a dark history and over 50,000 deaths that took place on this town's land. or I should say 50,000 casualties.

Yeah.

From July 1st through July 3rd, 1863, over 50,000 soldiers were wounded and killed in just 3 days. Over 50,000 casualties.

That's so crazy.

The ground was literally soaked in blood and the town was drenched in sorrow. So, it is not a surprise that given its history, people are still encountering what was left behind over 160 years

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later. battlefield, the churches, the hotels, the roads. Nearly every single structure still standing from that time has a story has a haunting or two or three or 10 or like Karen said,

a haunting every step. And right in the heart of town on Baltimore Street stands a house that has absorbed the history and the energy of the past. Footsteps in the attic, a soldier pacing the stairs night after night, a weeping woman, children laughing, and a ghost cat that likes to cuddle. A this is the Tilly Pierce House Inn. I'm so excited for this story cuz it's like an incredible woman and history and hauntings. It's got it all.

It's got it all.

This isn't just a time capsule. It's a historical treasure and a Sabrina of Two Girls One Ghost episode Dream. That's what I wrote [laughter] because it holds the story of one of the most incredible women in history, Tilly Pierce. a woman who wrote one of the most vivid and detailed civilian accounts of the Civil War and of

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Gettysburg. Tilly stayed to help the soldiers in Gettysburg instead of running away. And she was just 15 years old. She was only 15.

Mhm. Isn't that wild?

Okay, so before we do a deep dive into

historical context

the hauntings of this incredible place, um we're going to talk about the history of Tilly and everything. We briefly talked about Tilly and the Tilly Pierce House in when we did our collab with National Park After Dark back in August of 2023, but it was like literally a couple sentences and it was episode 166 of National Park After Dark's episode. So, we never did it on Two Girls Ghost.

Oh,

yeah.

Well, here we go.

They came onto our show and shared some like really great stories of unsung heroes, female hero heroes who fought or aided in the Civil War at Gettysburg and then we shared hauntings on their episode. Okay. Context. love context. We're going to talk about the Civil War very briefly and what led to the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. Again, going to be very brief. This is not a history lesson. I think the Civil War is like

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the most documented, written about, researched, like war in American history.

Mhm.

So, if you want more Civil War history, go somewhere else. You can find it.

You should have been taught it in school already.

Yes. Unless you're from Europe. It's not, you know, although I feel like Europeans learn so much more. [laughter]

They might know more about American history than a lot of us.

The American Civil War

Okay, so just like very briefly, the Spark Notes version. The Civil War was fought between the United States of America and the Confederate States of America, the Union versus the Confederacy. There's a lot of reasons into as to why the war began, but the one-word version of why, slavery. Racism.

Racism. The couple sentence version, the country had been tearing itself apart for decades over slavery. The southern economy, which is the Confederacy, ran on it. While the North, the Union, was opposed to it. And tensions were brought to a head when Abraham Lincoln was elected as president in 1860. And he had like run on the campaign of like

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abolishing slavery.

So with his election, the southern states were like, "Nope, we're out. We're going to start our own country." They started the Confederacy and Lincoln was like, "No, no, no. I'm going to nope your nope." like in UNO and that's not how that works and we're gonna start a war. So on April 12th, 1861, the American Civil War began. I am curious in all of the writings about the Civil War if anyone has used um UNO as a comparison to how it started [laughter] cuz that might be a first.

You heard it here. Actually, this is a history podcast

and this is an original experience. [laughter] Okay, so yes, it started on April 12th, 1861 where General Robert E. Lee led the Confederate army and Abraham Lincoln led the Union. By the summer of 1863, the war had been lasting for 2 years. It had been brutal. It was ongoing. Tens of thousands had already died. Brother was fighting brother. Father was fighting son. Battles were lasting days. And by the end of these battles, entire fields were just covered in bodies.

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Damn, the East Coast has seen some

Yes. It's at this time in the summer of 1863 that General Robert E. Lee decides to move the fight into the north because he wanted to win on Union soil and win the war once and for all. Actually, this reminds me of at the Boston Tea Party Museum. It's such an incredible experience. Like, they take you through different rooms. You do different It's very like hands-on, but then they have some videos that they show and I'll just say the acting is leaves something to be desired [laughter] in the videos.

Yeah. If we were had ample amount of time and skill, I'd pitch us redoing it for them.

We dress up as the men.

Yes. It's drunk history.

I wanted to do Oh, that's what we should do for our anniversary episode. [laughter]

Wait, makes me so sad. Okay. When when you have your child, [laughter] we have to do a Patreon episode where we

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have to try to remember like topics that we covered in the past and read the drink every time we can't figure it out.

Okay. We'll be very [laughter] drunk.

Wait. Oh, that would be so fun.

That's a good one. We'll have people pull topics.

Yeah. Like people cuz all of you know way more about our podcast than we do.

We don't remember anything.

Yeah. Um Okay. Robert Elely decides to move the fight into the north and essentially one wrong turn led his army to the tiny town of Gettysburg. At this time, Gettysburg was a pretty small city, a town of just 2,400 citizens and just 10 roads that led into the town. There were at the time 450 buildings that house small but thriving businesses and homes. And it is here that a young

Tillie Pierce

15-year-old girl named Matilda Pierce, or Tilly for short, called home. Tilly Pierce was born in Gettysburg in 1848. She grew up living with her family above her father's butcher shop on Baltimore

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Street right in the heart of Gettysburg. And there is a photo of like the house from I don't know what year it is, but back in the day. This feels like the beginning of a historical musical.

Like Hamilton.

Like Hamilton.

Also, it's like Hamilton mixed with Hairspray cuz you said Baltimore. So then immediately my my brain went good morning. [laughter] Do you love that musical? Tilly was the youngest of four kids. She had two older brothers, James and William, who by the time the Civil War started, they had both enlisted in the Union Army. And then she had an older sister named Maggie. By the summer of 1863, Tilly was 15 years old, attending a finishing school for girls. And now living in America at this time, everyone was aware of the Civil War. It was going on for years. Civilians were living in fear, awaiting news on their loved ones and also in fear of the war moving into their home. So for like over the years, there were constantly rumors or concern that like the battles would move into their home or onto their land or that

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military would show up and like kick them out of their homes and

Well, because that totally did happen.

Exactly.

Like this was a war fought in people's backyards. Meetings did happen around people's kitchen tables.

Yes. I'm sure every town in what was America at the time had this like fear and these rumors were constantly happening.

But up until this point, it was just rumor. That's all it was. Until it

The Battle of Gettysburg – through Tillie's eyes

wasn't. In June of 1863, roughly 75,000 men of the Confederate army began to move north through the Shannondoa Valley and into Pennsylvania. As they were moving through, they would sweep through these towns. They would seize supplies like steal things and supplies and things that were necessary for from the town's people and send waves of panic through the communities. Now the Union when they heard the Confederate army was making their move up, they were trying to intercept them.

They were tracking Lee and the Confederate soldiers movements for a long time but not yet making a move. Like they were making plotting and trying to like keep an eye on them. In midJune, as the Confederates continued

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their march through the north, young Tilly Pierce was at school working on literary exercises when suddenly her teacher interrupted their work in a panic. She tells all of the students to rush home, that the Confederate army was like emerging into town and that everyone had to go home quickly,

which is so scary.

So scary. Tilly ran home to her house on Baltimore Street, arriving just as Confederate soldiers began to seize supplies in town. They stole horses, food, and other supplies. And the residents of Gettysburg, again, there's 2400 of them and 75,000 soldiers in the Confederate army. They can all they can do is comply. They give over all of their supplies.

Yeah.

And it's just so hard for me to even wrap my mind around this war cuz I'm like, all this so you can keep another human being enslaved?

Oh, it's horrible. Yeah. And the Union soldiers were not yet there to offer protection. So, like I can't even imagine how scary this is. Like 75,000 people, men. Yeah. About a week later,

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the Union troops made it into Gettysburg and Tilly wrote the following about that day. And again, like Tilly really documented all of this, like it's like a diary, and there's a book that I'll mention later on, but so some of these are direct quotes from Tilly. She wrote this about the day that the Union troops made it into Gettysburg. It was to me a novel and grand sight. I had never seen so many soldiers at one time. They were Union soldiers and that was enough for me. For I then knew we had protection and I felt they were our dearest friends. Desiring to encourage them as we were told they would soon be in battle. My sister started to sing the old war song, Our Union forever. As the day passed, the presence of the two armies became now more and more apparent. And then Tilly also wrote about the fear the black community felt with the presence of the Confederate soldiers because as you can imagine they were terrified of the Confederates

whose sole purpose was to enslave their people. She wrote like of how the black people would be screaming, crying and

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like grabbing their loved ones and their children and like terrified that they were going to be killed on the spot.

We have often said like, "Oh, I wish we could go back in history. I wish we could do this or that and like just see it. I don't want to see it.

I feel like that I would say like a 100 years from now if we were living, I would say the same about this time period that we're in. That's true. So then on the morning of July 1st, 1863, almost by accident, a Confederate division that was moving toward the town of Gettysburg for supplies ran into the Union cavalry. Shots were fired, reinforcements were called, and when Tilly Pierce and her friends heard that the Union reinforcements were on the move, there was almost like a giddy excitement based on the way they describe it. Like they ran to watch the spectacle unfold on Washington Street. And according to Till's writings, it was between 9 and 10:00 when they first noticed firing in the direction of Seminary Ridge. The sound was at first faint, but then grew louder. And soon

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the booming of cannon was heard and great clouds of smoke were seen rising beyond the ridge. So what started as like this like oh my gosh like a shot was fired like the Union troops are going to like probably they're like oh we're going to kill the Confederates and win this war but very quickly what started with one shot fired is now smoke clouds descending into the town of Gettysburg and before nightfall there were stretchers and ambulances of soldiers being brought back into the town of Gettysburg

which like how was there even enough people to help all injured, which there were not.

They were not. That's That's how they were not. By day's end, what would be the bloodiest battle of the Civil War was in full force. And the residents of Gettysburg obviously were terrified because up until this point, yeah, the Confederate soldiers were like stealing their supplies and stuff, but there had been no fighting and no battle, and they were now terrified for their lives. So, so many of the residents began to flee. And even Till's parents made plans to

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send Tilly away to a farm owned by a man named Jacob Wkert. I think that's how you say his name. He was the father of one of their neighbors and owned a farm outside of Gettysburg. And they thought this would be a safer place for 15-year-old Tilly to go. The only preparation Tilly made before she left was she carried all of her best clothes down into the cellar so that they would be safe upon her return. She didn't even pack a bag of clothes for herself to go to the farm because she truly just didn't even have the understanding of what was going on or how long she was going to be gone for. She like everyone kind of thought this would be over in a day.

It was not.

It's like when all of us got sent home for 2 weeks for co

truly. Yeah. Everyone's like, "Oh, 10 days it will pass." Like we'll be back in the office.

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After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. So, please support our show and let them know that we sent you. Tilly Pierce left for Jacob

Weikert’s Farm

Wikert's farm around 1 p.m. on July 1st, 1863. And she went with her neighbor, Mrs. Shrivever, and her neighbor's children. And along the way, they have to pass Union soldiers who are clearly scared and tell them to hurry as fast as possible because they were in great danger of being shot and killed. The entire journey to the farm was dangerous, but the words of Till's parents echoed in her mind the whole time. Like, you're going to be safe there. It's safer at the farm. Don't worry, safer at the farm. She held on to that the whole journey to the farm, not knowing just how wrong her parents had been because the white cart farm sat right at the base of Little Round Top, which if you're familiar with the Battle of Gettysburg, that's basically ground zero for some of the most brutal fighting of the entire battle. The farmhouse was only 600 yards from the most intense clashes and bloodiest fights of Gettysburg. By some miracle, Tilly arrived to the farm safely. But

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within hours, reality struck as the first wounded soldier was carried to the farmhouse. The man was still alive, but had been hit in the head by artillery shrapnel, and blood was like oozing out of his head.

My god.

More and more soldiers began flooding the area, and 15-year-old Tilly was in shock. She had never even known fear like this before. And despite it all, she knew she had to do something. So she ran and grabbed a bucket and in her words hastened to the spring and there with others she carried water to the soldiers over and over until the spring was completely dry. Dang. Yeah. More and more wounded arrived. This is day one of the battle. Some were limping. Some had their heads and arms and bandages. Some were crawling, barely hanging on to life. Others were carried on stretchers or brought in by ambulances. And before night fell, the barn was filled with shattered and dying heroes. Until he wrote this, "Before night, the barn was filled with the shattered and dying heroes of this day struggle. Nothing

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before in my experience had ever paralleled the sight we then and there beheld. They were the groaning and crying, the struggling and dying, crowded side by side while attendant sought to aid and relieve them as best they could." She's 15 years old and this is day one of the battle. Day two,

Tillie is thrown into the battle

things got much worse. Shortly before noon, she observed soldiers lying on the ground just at the back of the house, dead.

They had fallen just where they had been standing when shot. Then came the, and I'm going to mispronounce this word, but canonating, which I'm I want to say cannoning, which I think is the same thing, but the sound was so loud and so terrible that people in the farmhouse couldn't hear each other speak. That's how close this is. Well, and that's also Sorry if I'm spoiling anything, but like that's one of the common hauntings of Gettysburg is hearing cannons.

You're not ruining anything.

Okay. [laughter] Sorry.

I think you could have guessed it, too. But

there's cannons in the air. Yeah. Sometime between 400 p.m. and 5:00 p.m.

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Tilly Pierce and those staying at the farm were literally caught between opposing forces. So now like the war has moved to like the farmhouse is in the middle of the battle.

Damn, that's so wild. By night, the house and surrounding land and orchard were covered with the shattered and dying. The scene had become terrible beyond description. I think there's a photo, and we'll include it. It's because it's such an old photo, it is hard to see all of it, but there's like horses and bodies just like on the ground there.

Then came the amputating benches. Surgeons set up operating tables right outside the windows, and Tilly watched as limbs were literally sawed off and bullets were probed for and removed. And also like there's not much time or they're not like putting these soldiers under anesthesia. They're like literally alive feeling everything as their limbs are being cut off.

Yeah.

She and the woman who owned the farm tore bandages and gave them to surgeons just two days before. 15-year-old Tilly

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all she had to worry about was like tests at school and like little drama with her friends. [clears throat] She is now bringing bread to the wounded and sitting beside dying men. Days passed and the sounds of cannons and gunshots slowly subsided. And as the smoke began to clear, Tilly waited at the farm, continuing to aid the wounded. There's a story of um probably between like July 2nd and 3rd, there was a dying soldier who requested that Tilly stay with him and she sat by his side and the next morning he was dead.

Yeah.

It's so sad. And there's just so many people like people can't even be like IDed.

No. Well, I guess that's why we have the like mass graves. Yeah. And cemeteries.

Finally, on July 7th, 1863, Tilly was able to return home to Gettysburg. And on her journey home, she saw the true scope of damage and bloodshed. And it struck her. The place she had once called home had completely changed in a matter of week. Fences had been knocked over. Buildings altogether were

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completely gone, demolished, and ruined. And blood literally stained the ground. Tilly wrote, "The whole landscaped had been changed, and I felt as though we were in a strange and blighted land. And sure, yeah, the battle might have been over, but the work was not done." And the next couple of details I'm going to share are really gruesome. Just like and just the imagery and like if you have an imaginative mind, like it's hard to picture.

the aftermath & casualties of the Battle of Gettysburg

So from July 1st through July 3rd, 1863, the Battle of Gettysburg was fought between the Union and Confederates. It was hot. It was bloody. In those three days, 10,000 were killed, 30,000 were wounded, and another 10,000 were either captured or considered missing. And by the end of it all, it is believed that roughly 51,000 total casualties occurred over the course of 3 days.

And there were 2,000 people here who lived

2,400 people. Yep.

Before

around 2,300 Union soldiers were killed,

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wounded, captured, or missing. Around 2,800 Confederate soldiers were killed, wounded, captured, or missing. And only one civilian had been killed by fire during the battle. One Mary Virginia or Jenny Wade. And like that's a whole other episode about Gettysburg, who we did also briefly talk about in the episode [clears throat] with National Park After Dark. But to put this into perspective, the population of the town of Gettysburg was 2,400 people. Suddenly, they were surrounded by 21 times that in dead bodies or wounded soldiers. 24,000 residents of Gettysburg had to now band together to rebuild their city. But first, they had to attend to the casualties. The immediate aftermath is horrific. Around 21,000 soldiers were receiving treatment in makeshift hospitals and basically the entire town of Gettysburg turned into a hospital. Churches, schools, private homes, including Tilly Pierce's home on Baltimore Street. And I do want to know it's like it's important to know that Tilly is not the only person who stepped up like clearly this entire town came

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together and was instrumental in coming to the aid of all these soldiers.

But because of how detailed her story is like that she wrote all of this down, it really helps paint the picture and understand why Gettysburg has such a haunted reputation. Some 7,000 soldiers lay dead on Gettysburg soil along with some 3,000 dead horses. It's July. It's a hot smell.

The smell alone was unbearable. And this detail is gross, so again, skip ahead 30 seconds if you don't want to hear it. One soldier described passing the fields on July 4th, the day after the battle ended, and wrote that the corpses were swollen to twice their size. The pressure of gases caused them to burst, and the odors were so nauseating and deadly that men were vomiting.

Oh, that's so gross.

And the smell permeated for months. There was a New York Times report in November of 1863 that specifically said the smell still

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saturated the entire town of Gettysburg. And then keep in mind this is also like the Civil War is ongoing. So the people who were in the armies that were still fit to continue had to keep fighting the battle. So they move they leave Gettysburg leaving behind all these wounded soldiers and all these corpses for the towns people of Gettysburg to deal with. So the town's people built trenches and they dug and buried bodies in just like 4 in of soil. So after any heavy rains, hands and feet and skulls were literally emerging out of the grounds. Despite that being so horrendous, they also have like 21,000 wounded soldiers that they're trying to care for. And that's priority over dealing with the dead bodies,

man. And out of the wounded, how many people are just still dying every day,

right? A few days after,

how do you even feed them? How do you feed yourself? Another great question. A few days after the battle, soldiers knocked on the Pierce family door. So on Tilly's family's home door, asking if they could bring their wounded colonel into the home. The family said yes. The

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colonel was brought into their home suffering immensely. And surgeons wanted to amputate his foot, but this colonel was like so stubborn and really attached to his foot. I guess

maybe just also the fear of having your foot chopped off while you're fully

Well, they literally told him that if he didn't get his foot chopped off, like he would die. And he said if his foot must go, he would go, too.

As someone who's has a lot of medical fears, I could see myself also being like, "All right, then I guess I just die, but I can't sit through getting my leg chopped off." I mean, the pain he's experiencing already from his foot probably is like unimaginable, but anyway, he really wanted to keep onto his foot because he had a foot career modeling only foots business coming up afterwards. Anyway, the colonel stays in their home for months as he recovered. And as he was there, like for months, he became like a part of the family. They're tending to him, like helping rebandage his wounds, bringing him food, sitting with him, talking to him. he

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becomes a member of the Pierce family and I think it was some four or five months later he was like recovered so he didn't need to amputate his foot and he did survive and he was well enough to actually leave and Tilly writes about like how everyone cried when he left

because they had become so

endeared to each other and then I guess Tilly wrote of a day 3 years after the battle where the colonel where all of a sudden like there was a knock on their door and it is the colonel returning to like pay them a visit and say thank you again.

Yeah,

that's sweet.

I know.

Why does this feel like people who raise a lion cub and [laughter] then the lion grows up and and like recognizes them again a year later? [laughter]

It was kind of like that. Okay. But so before this colonel got better and the town is still trying to like attend to all these soldiers, Tilly enlisted in helping with nursing duties at Gettysburg's Camp Letterman General

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Hospital, which had been like impromptu setup on the outskirts of town. Again, she's only 15 years old. And these wounded soldiers remained in Gettysburg for months. Around 3,500 soldiers were reentered to a new cemetery on Cemetery Hill, which was dedicated on November 19th, 1863 when Lincoln gave the infamous Gettysburg address. But the bodies of the Confederate soldiers weren't properly handled in some cases for years. They weren't relocated to southern cemeteries until 1871, 1873, like almost 10 years after

Wow. the battle. Some remains have never been found. Historians estimate that anywhere from 800 to a,000 bodies are still unaccounted for. And as recently as 1996, a tourist was just like over by the railroad track when they stumbled upon a body, like skeletal remains. And through testing, they determined it was the remains of a soldier from the Battle of Gettysburg.

Oh my god.

In 1996.

I believe that there's so many.

Tillie Pierce legacy

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Yeah. Safe to say Gettysburg never went back to how it was prior to the horrors of the Battle of Gettysburg. And the horrors cannot be forgotten. One, because this history is so prominent in American history. But then two, because the energy there is so palpable that history literally bleeds through timelines and spirits won't let us forget.

Mhm. And then three, because Tilly wrote this incredible book that she published of all of her writings and experiences, so we will never forget. So before I get into the hauntings, I'm just going to wrap up Till's story because she's such a prominent part of this. After the war, she was reunited with her family and both of her brothers did survive the war.

In 1871, Tilly left Gettysburg after meeting and marrying her then husband, Horus P. Alamman. They built a life, had kids, became very active in patriotic organizations. And in 1889, 25 years after the Battle of Gettysburg, Tilly published her

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memoir called At Gettysburg, or what a girl saw and heard of the battle. And like I said, historians have called it one of the most outstanding eyewitness accounts written by any Gettysburg resident and is still in print today.

Dang. All because of a 15-year-old journaling about her experience.

Yeah. So to anyone who wants to get back into journaling, here's your reason why. So it's also in this decade in like 1890s, 1880s that Tilly was given the deed to the house she grew up in, the house on Baltimore Street where she grew up, the place that housed her father's butcher shop, the place that witnessed the bloody battle, and the place where they even aided and attended to wounded soldiers.

On March 5th, 1914, Tilly Pierce Elman died of complications from cancer. She was 66 years old and was laid to rest at the Trinity Lutheran Church Cemetery in Selins Grove, PA. Far from where she grew up, far from Gettysburg. But here's the thing. Doesn't matter where you die. It doesn't matter where you're buried.

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You can haunt Well, we don't know the rules, but Tilly seems to have gone back to her home from childhood in Gettysburg and haunts it. And that brings us to the

The Tillie Pierce House Inn & the hauntings

Tilly Pierce House Inn. [clears throat]

Oh, it's an inn now.

Mhm. You can stay.

I was just going to ask, is it a museum? is a private residence.

You can stay there. It is a place where past and future guests are welcome. Wait, this is literally taken from their website. On their website, it says a place where past and future guests are welcome.

Opening the door for the spirits to come in.

Not that they have much of a choice. It's like

that's true.

It's not like

they have to they're just trying to get along with who's already there.

It's like yeah, you're welcome because you you're already here.

It's your because you have to be

and technically it's your home. So, as we know, this building stood witness to history, the bloodshed, and the strength of human spirit that persevered to like get through the aftermath of the Civil War or Gettysburg. It was built in 1829, so prior to the Civil War, and it's still standing 200 years later. After Till's death, the house passed through

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different owners for years until eventually it was turned into a bed and breakfast and named after Tilly Pierce to honor her contributions and the things she witnessed when she called it home. And I'm sure that people noticed odd ongoings and hauntings in this building before it was an inn.

But that is when once it was turned into the Tilly Pierce House Inn, that's when people started to really document it.

Oh, interesting.

And document the hauntings. But there are many. Even if you go to their Trip Advisor page, like countless of the reviews were like, "Wow, this was such a great stay. Like such a beautiful inn and I loved the ghost cat who slept with me at night.

How cute."

Yes. is chalk full of firsthand hauntings.

It is one of those crazy things where I feel like every place in Gettysburg is haunted, which means that if you're going to Gettysburg just to like experience the cemeteries, the battlefields, the history, you don't get to just go sleep at night and be okay. Like I don't care if you're at the Marriott or if you're at a local inn. Like you're going to be haunted,

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right? I don't care if you say ghosts aren't real. The ghost will be like, "Hey, actually we are. Top tap top. Can I tickle your toes at night or walk through your room thinking they're still in the middle of battle?

Yeah. Walk through you right in the street. Make you faint.

Or that one listener story where like the soldier literally like took a sword to someone.

Yep.

Yep.

Sometimes it's not a residual haunting. It is some sort of glitch and they got access to you.

Who knows? Because there are a lot of hauntings. It is hard to like really qualify who is what, what is who, but over the years they've kind of like whittleled it down to like

the couple main types of hauntings.

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the staircase soldier

soldier, and this is one of the most commonly reported hauntings. Guests report seeing and hearing a soldier

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walking down the stairs, opening a door as if the soldier's going into that room, and like very quickly followed by the footsteps going back up the stairs.

It's like that same pattern.

Yeah. It happens so often that people do believe it's a residual haunting, like a soldier either patrolling or like something really prominent happened in that moment and like made them run back upstairs. I don't know. Paranormal investigators have captured lots of EMF spikes and disembodied voices on the

the children

stairs. And then there's another couple of spirits that are in the hallway by the stairs, ghost children, and they're running and playing. Multiple guests report hearing children playing in the halls and on the stairs, especially late at night or early in the morning. And every time they go to check, no one is there. And most often when people go to like ask the front desk about the kids playing, there are zero children checked in and staying at that hotel.

But doesn't it make you happy that there are some kids who are like actually enjoying the afterlife and having fun and it's not just the spirits of people who had horrific ends to their lives.

39:00

Yes, I agree. And really, aside from the one soldier on the stairs, like there aren't all that many Civil War Gettysburg soldier hauntings in the Tilly Pierce house in like there are a couple.

Yeah.

But that's like the most prominent one. And then the other ones are like the ghost children, a cat, a weeping woman.

It's just ripe energy for any Yeah.

spirit to remain.

Right. I think just like how much bloodshed and like tragedy Gettysburg saw it has become like this like energy vortex. And also there's been 200 more years of people living there and dying there and

totally

life went on after the battle.

Lots of life happened there before and

the weeping woman

after. Okay. Then there's another very commonly reported experiences at the inn is uh the sound of a woman crying. Sometimes softly and sometimes very loud in like these like weeping whales. It's usually coming from one of the upstairs bedrooms but when people go to check nobody's there. No one can really say for certain who she is. Some believe

40:00

it's connected to Tilly herself, that she's crying and the trauma and everything she's witnessed. Others think it's maybe a mother of a wounded soldier who died in the house or truly it could be completely disconnected from the Civil War entirely. Hard to know for sure, but like I said, some people do think it's connected to Tilly. And regardless of that, people do believe Tilly haunts this home because guests report seeing a young girl in a white dress wandering the halls or gazing out the windows. Kind of like a girl in her like when she's 15 years old. So people are like, "Oh, is she returning in the form that she was when she was here?

Is it residual?"

Hard to know,

but her energy. What if when people die and the like life reviews that happen where there's like big moments that like flash before their eyes as they're passing, what if each of those moments ends up being a haunting?

So, it's like their spirit goes back and sees it and then

41:00

they move on, but like that moment still exists forever. Anything is possible. So

the Blue Room

that energy of like the woman, the girl in the white dress is most often seen in the blue room,

which the blue room is very paranormally active. Like if you want to stay at this inn and you want a paranormal experience, highly recommend you stay in the blue room. And you might be like, why is it called the blue room? Can you guess what color the walls are painted?

Blue.

Blue. What if I said red? [laughter]

Someone's color blind.

Yeah. No, it's blue. Um, but it's also called the Hedi Shrivever room. And Heddy Shrivever was the neighbor in which Tilly went to the white cart farm with.

It's a triple room, so three guests can stay here. It's on suite with a standard garden view. And it's super historic looking.

Oh wow.

Beautiful fireplace, brick fireplace in the room. Lots of antiques and vintage furniture. But like I said, it's the

42:00

most haunted room of the inn. It's believed to be inhabited by the soldier or soldiers that Tilly once cared for after the battle and perhaps the colonel himself. Although people again, it's like trying to take pieces that they know from the story and and attribute it to it. But the colonel never died here. Maybe again he had such a strong affinity and love for this family that like he has come back as a spirit. [sighs]

Who knows? People hear footsteps in the attic above them or right outside the door of the blue room. Others report feelings of being watched, like they are not alone in the room. And some guests have literally seen the apparition of a soldier standing near their bed. Some guests have also woken up to the same soldier sitting down on the end of the bed.

And then people report seeing an apparition of a woman that they believe is Tilly herself. But wait, there's

other paranormal activity | ghost cat, poltergeist, & investigations

more. [laughter]

If the 12 ghosts weren't enough for you,

right? There's also a ghost that moves and steals people's possessions. little

43:00

poltergeist activity. And then of course, my favorite, there's a ghost cat, too. This ghost cat will sometimes jump up onto people's beds and cuddle up with them. And the inn even has like a bowl of cat toys with like a little like note

telling guests about the ghost cat. So, they really are like paying homage and like welcoming guests of the past and present. With a place as infamously historic and haunted as Gettysburg and the Tilly Pierce Inn, there are countless YouTube videos or shows where people go and do paranormal investigations. I cannot did not watch them all, but I did find a couple of notable things that investigators did capture. So, people have caught EVPs of voices saying, "I'm here." Or, "Help him or don't leave me." Which I can imagine like the moment Tilly talked about like the dying soldier who was like, "Please sit with me." Yeah,

you know, the manager of Ghost City Tours, whose name is Andy, visited the house many times, and this is a quote that he said. There's something

44:00

incredibly raw about the energy in that house. It's not malevolent, it's sad. You can feel it in your bones. I've had EVPs from there that made me stop recording all together for the night. One of them said, "Mama," and that was it. One word, but it stuck with me for years. Like a sad, like crying for your mom. Andy believes that there's a lot of emotional residue left inside the building that has left this lasting psychic imprint and that the spirits are begging to be heard.

Man, the inn was also featured on the TV show Ghost Detectives in 2015. I did not go down that rabbit hole, but encourage you to do so if you want. The investigators who did go through the building came out saying that haunted was an understatement. I believe that one guest reported the smell of lilacs accompanied with the feeling of someone watching them from the corner of the room. It dissipated.

Thank goodness it's the smell of lilacs, not like the smell of the

battle decaying bodies. Yeah. That smell dissipated and then they went to bed and around 1:00 a.m. they woke up to the

45:00

sounds of women crying.

Safe to say the Tilly Pierce House Inn is haunted. But are we surprised? Probably not. If you are, have you been listening to this episode? Do you believe in ghosts? And why are you here? If you don't,

who are you? Why are you here?

Did you accidentally stumble upon this because you love history and love the Civil War and you're like, I didn't sign up for ghosts. Well, guess what? History means ghosts. [laughter] You're welcome. Gettysburg as a whole is arguably the most haunted place in America. And I mean, just think about like what we talked about today. Over 50,000 casualties in just 3 days. Thousands of bodies left to rot on the ground in the midst of July heat. Left there for months.

Disgusting.

A small town of 2,400 residents came together trying to rebuild, trying to aid the thousands of wounded. They opened their homes. They dug shallow graves. And they witnessed death with their own eyes. They bandaged the wounded with their bare hands. And inevitably, they were never the same.

46:00

That trauma is baked into the town, into the buildings, into the land. Everywhere you go in Gettysburg, there's a building, a field, a road with a story, and like Karin said, a haunting every step. It's not just the Tilly Pierce house in it is everything. But Tilly helped us remember what happened there. She wrote it all down, every detail. And even now, maybe she continues to linger in that house she grew up in, continuing to offer guests a slight glimpse into her past. Damn. I feel like this is the stuff that people don't hear about as much. It's like you think about the actual battle and the reason for the battle, but there's so many

characters like this.

100%. That's why I love these types of stories cuz you are getting a different perspective.

And she was 15.

15.

Getting bread, getting water from the stream, staying with people until they pass. When I was 15, I was sneaking out of my house and getting into the van of a very questionable drug dealer and going down to the end of my culde-sac

47:00

and smoking a joint. [snorts]

It's a little different.

It's so different.

Did you journal about it at least?

No.

Well, you're podcasting about it now.

This [laughter] is my journal.

A different a different version of it.

This is my journal.

Oh my god.

Such a wild wild story.

It is wild. Damn. Okay. I will. I first

listener story

was looking for if we had any stories from this specific house since people can stay there, but I did not find one. However, I did find an email called Gettysburg Haunted Girls Trip.

Perfect.

Perfect.

Tilly would love this.

Tilly would want to go on this trip.

Yeah, she deserves a break after everything she went through.

Well, this isn't much too much of a break. They're definitely not a paranormal break. We'll say that.

Hi, Karen and Sabrina. I'm currently sitting at a random Arby's on the side of the road on my way home from a girl's trip in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Oh, like this is being emailed like immediately after.

My best friend Lacy and I decided to stay at one of the most haunted hotels, the Gettysburg Hotel. The first night we were there, we crawled into bed after an

48:00

amazing dinner at the Dobin House, which I highly re recommend checking out if you visit.

And as I was drifting off to sleep, I felt someone sit on my bed. This has happened to me in the past, so it didn't really bother me. The presence didn't feel scary, so I just brushed it off. What was really spooky was Lacy's dream that she had that night. She dreamt that we were in an old farmhouse, and I was telling her about the doors slamming shut upstairs. She then looks over at me and sees a shadow figure creep out from behind me

and smile at her.

Any smiling entity? Nope.

Yeah, so creepy. I then turn towards her and yell, "You need to breathe." as the figure begins to crawl over her arms.

"Oh my god."

She's then said that she gasped and woke up in the exact same position that she was in in her dream.

No. Then she noticed the mirror in our hotel room was the same mirror behind me and the shadow figure in her dream. The

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mirror looked into another mirror in the hotel room and we felt silly for not noticing this sooner because mirrors in a haunted hotel equals portals, right? So, we ended up taking the mirror down. We put a pillowcase over it and the room felt so much better, so much lighter.

We also heard a chair scratching on wooden floors above us and a ball bouncing on the wooden floor. What made this strange is that all of the rooms in the hotel are actually carpeted

from Beth.

So again, like a slipping through time, experiencing something that wasn't happening.

Yeah.

In present day,

it's so interesting because it's like Beth is in the dream being like, "You need to breathe like basically like wake up or like save yourself while this other entity is after her in a farmhouse."

I'm curious about the history of this hotel. Like was it a farmhouse at one point that did like aid soldiers? Because you know on top of all this

50:00

trauma causing what is inevitably a psychic portal or or like

memory holds all the memory of it. If anything Waverly Hills has taught us that so much tragedy also opens itself up to something negative coming in.

Yeah.

And like feeding off that energy. Um, this was a makeshift Civil War hospital.

Makes sense.

And one of the big ones.

Crazy.

Yeah,

there's so many. Also, like if you go on Reddit or if you go on YouTube and you look up like apparitions and EVPs from Gettysburg, it is there are so many. I mean, we

That is convincing stuff, too. Like I feel like if you don't believe in paranormal evidence, if you just like witness the stuff that comes out of Gettysburg, how can you say that there's not something to the paranormal?

I want to go to Gettysburg.

Gettysburg feels like a weekl long trip. It feels

I because there's so many haunted locations. Yeah.

So yeah, hotels, restaurants,

the Jenny Wade the Jenny Wade House, but

51:00

you can like go in and tour.

Yeah. Museums, there's just so much.

Yeah. But also it feels very overwhelming cuz I feel like the people that we know who've gone have all been pretty affected.

I want to get haunted, you know, like a like not something follow me home haunted, but like I want to go experience something haunting.

Yeah.

Which at the time of this recording, we have not yet. But by the time it's come out, we did do something.

We did go to be haunted.

And you'll find about it. Find about it.

You find about it.

You'll find about it. uh find out about it sometime in October probably

and we'll find out about it when we go. [laughter]

We'll find out about it. But Gettysburg might be next on our list.

Yeah,

cuz it's also not that far from us. So, field trip

check back soon.

Yeah, we have so many plans. Getting you drunk is first on the list.

Oh my [laughter] god.

Post pregnancy getting you drunk and us doing a drunk history is on my list.

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Well, until then, [laughter] which will be a while from now, please send us all of your hauntings and experiences at two girls podcast@gmail.com. You can rate and review on Apple, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts. Tell other people about us. Pyramid scheme still does exist and it works. It sure as heck does. We have Patreon where you can get episodes one week early and ad free plus bonus content plus campfire stories where you can come share your ghost story with us live every Tuesday plus book club witch classes so many

plus other things plus it's just such a plus. [laughter]

Thank you to Jamie Ryan for editing and producing our podcast and thanks to all of you. We love you

and we will see you on the other side.

Very spooky.