A Pennsylvania Barn Story

I have finally begun in earnest photographing barns for my Pennsylvania Barn Stories. My wife and I recently went on a barn tour in the Lebanon Valley and then proceeded to Gettysburg to meet with friends and to photograph the McPherson barn.  Here's what the National Park Service says about the barn:

Edward McPherson's farm was a half mile west of Gettysburg, atop the ridge that also bears his name. The area was the scene of intense fighting on July 1st, 1863, as Confederate General Henry Heth's Division advanced towards Gettysburg against defending Union cavalry under General John Buford. Union reinforcements from General John Reynolds' First Corps arrived and counterattacked, and fighting swirled through McPherson's pasturelands and two fields planted in corn and wheat, as well as through neighbor John Herbst's woods. McPherson's barn became a place of refuge for the wounded, and continued as a hospital long after the battle ended.

McPherson was a lawyer and journalist who had served in the U.S. House of Respresentatives from 1859 until March of 1863. A Radical Republican, he had lost the1862 election, after which President Lincoln appointed him as Deputy Commissioner of Internal Revenue. John Slentz and his family were renting the McPherson farm at the time of the battle.

The barn is the last survivor of Edward McPherson's buildings, and was restored by the National Park Service in 1978. It is currently used by a local farmer who also leases the McPherson fields.

We stayed at a motel on Buford Avenue in a small unit separate from the  other rooms. The modest building was identified as the Dustman Barn and was also used as a hospital during the Battle of Gettysburg.

We then moved on to Carlisle to check out Canaday's Book Barn. The owner graciously opened the doors and turned on the lights and I took some photos but I want to go back and take more.

I've identified more than 60 barns that might be story worthy. Now I need to find the time to photograph them.