Also known as Lee’s headquarters. The 24-acre Thompson Farm was co-owned by Mary Thompson, a 70-year-old widow, with Thaddeus Stevens, a U.S. Congressman from Pennsylvania. The stone house dates to 1833. Mary’s son, James Henry Thompson, lived across the road in a house which also still stands. This farm was located along the busy Chambersburg Pike, today known as Route 30.
Mary Thompson stayed during the battle and helped care for the wounded. Lee established his headquarters in the apple orchard on the farm and slept in the house on July 1. Mary remained in the house until her death in 1873.
In 1896 a fire burned the interior, although the stone shell was unharmed. For many decades after the battle, a hotel was located behind the farm, and the house itself, with a modern addition, operated as a private museum. The hotel is now gone and the house has been lovingly restored by the American Battlefield Trust, which acquired it in 2015, to its appearance at the time of the Battle of Gettysburg.
The gallery below contains some photos of the Thompson House as it looked prior to its restoration, completed in 2016, and some photos as it looks now, fully restored to its 1863 appearance.
