A full narrative history section
The Sherfy Farm at Gettysburg is on Emmitsburg Road about a mile south of town (Emmitsburg Road tour map). At the time of the battle the fifty acre farm was owned by Reverend Joseph Sherfy. It included the famous Peach Orchard to the south of Wheatfield Road along with both Big and Little Round Tops and the Devil’s Den.
The house was built in the 1840’s. You can still see bullet holes in its brickwork, signs of the fierce fighting that took place around it on July 2nd and 3rd. The current barn is a postwar replacement. The original had been used by the Confederates as a field hospital but it had burned during the battle.
Joseph (1813-1883) and Mary Sherfy (1818-1904) and their six children were pacifist members of the Church of the Brethren. A seventh child would be born to the family after the war. As the Union troops of John Reynolds’ 1st Corps made their way up Emmitsburg Road on July 1st they marched past a large water tub along the road which Joseph worked to keep filled. Mary and her mother Catherine baked bread and passed it out to the men. They were ordered away from the farm on the morning of the 2nd, driving their stock southeast of the Round Tops and to Two Taverns.
Today, the Sherfy property is still actively producing produce. The Gettysburg Foundation, with Gettysburg National Military Park and the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College, harvest vegetables, fruit, and herbs in the Sherfy garden. Without digging into the battlefield landscape, volunteers gain the experience of using special techniques to grow crops from heirloom seeds. All harvested produce—2,000 pounds in 2015 alone—is donated to local food banks and community-based programs like Meals-on-Wheels and the Campus Kitchen.