Gettysburg

How Gettysburg began

Gettysburg was settled between 1827 and 1831 by families from Adams County, Pennsylvania, who built up the village in Adams Township's east-central section and named it for their old county seat; the 1880 county history names John Hershey as its nominal founder and dates incorporation to 1866. The site lies across Greenville Creek from where Abraham Studabaker, Darke County's second permanent settler, built a blockhouse around 1808-11 and, by his family's account, hosted visits from Tecumseh, Little Turtle and Black Hoof. A railroad reached the village around 1863, and on April 30, 1865, Lincoln's funeral train passed through en route to Springfield. The village's economy peaked in the early 20th century on tobacco and grain shipping and, later, the Petersime Incubator Company, founded there in 1922 and internationally known before closing in 2006.

Settled 1827-1831 (Pennsylvania families from Adams County), platted by John Hershey (exact year not given in the 1880 county history; Wikipedia gives 1842), incorporated 1866, by John Hershey.

Where the name comes from

Named for Gettysburg, the seat of Adams County, Pennsylvania, home of many of the village's early settlers who emigrated between 1827 and 1831.

Before the town

No Native American village or site specific to present-day Gettysburg is documented in the sources checked, but the 1880 county history records extensive Native contact just across Greenville Creek, where Abraham Studabaker, Darke County's second permanent settler, built a cabin in 1808 and a blockhouse around 1811. Studabaker's family recalled frequent visits from Native people seeking food, generally peaceable but sometimes tense -- on one occasion two men took bacon from his wife by force -- and named Tecumseh, a figure the text calls 'Laulewasikaee' (probably Tenskwatawa, the Prophet, though the source's phrasing does not make the relationship entirely clear), Little Turtle and Black Hoof among the notable visitors, describing Tecumseh as of 'grave, dignified, commanding presence.' The account also describes a six-man Native party's drinking bout in Studabaker's clearing after a whiskey run to trader Azor Scribner's post at Minatown, and the wartime capture and escape of five Native men whose recapture led to the killing of soldiers Stoner and Elliott near Fort Jefferson.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Miami.

Timeline

1. 1808 — Abraham Studabaker settles on Greenville Creek opposite the future site of Gettysburg, Darke County's second permanent settlement; his son David, born in the family's blockhouse in 1814, is the first white child born in the township.
2. 1827 — Families from Adams County, Pennsylvania begin arriving in the township's east-central section over the next several years, eventually laying out and building up the village of Gettysburg, named for their former county seat.
3. 1840 — James Auld builds a brick store on the southwest corner of Main and Bridge streets, moving his stock there from an earlier log-house store.
4. 1847 — The Presbyterian church, a 40x55-foot brick building at the west end of Corwin Street, is built, with prominent builders William Carr, John Meyer, Alexander Horner and Dr. Darwin; its first pastor is Rev. Thomas Elcock.
5. 1866 — Gettysburg is incorporated as a village.
6. 1866 — The village's present schoolhouse is erected at a cost of nearly $5,000, with Samuel Paulding contracted for the woodwork and Rev. Jackson as first teacher.
7. 1865-04-30 — Abraham Lincoln's funeral train passes through Gettysburg en route to Springfield, Illinois.
8. 1875 — The Methodist Episcopal church building, originally standing two miles southeast of town, is moved into Gettysburg and remodeled by Silas Reck.
9. 1876 — A bridge across Greenville Creek at Gettysburg is begun by the Cincinnati Bridge Company, finished in 1877 at a cost of about $5,000.
10. 1907 — Gettysburg ships 168 railcars of tobacco worth over $1 million and 398 carloads of grain worth $300,000.
11. 1922 — The Petersime Incubator Company is founded in Gettysburg, later becoming an internationally known manufacturer.
12. 2006 — The Petersime Incubator Company closes.

Stories

A settler's blockhouse across the creek

Before Gettysburg existed, the ground just across Greenville Creek from its future site was the home of Abraham Studabaker, who arrived in 1808 as Darke County's second permanent settler -- a full nineteen years before the Pennsylvania families who would found Gettysburg itself began arriving. Studabaker built a blockhouse around 1811 as tensions rose, and his family's stories, preserved in the 1880 county history, describe years of wary but largely peaceful contact: Native visitors who called almost daily for food and were never refused, occasional tense encounters like the forced taking of bacon from his wife, and visits from prominent figures the history names as Tecumseh, Little Turtle and Black Hoof. Studabaker also killed multiple American panthers on his land, including one that measured eight feet from tip to tip, and later took a government contract to feed Native people through the final treaty negotiations that ended the War of 1812 conflict in the region. His son David, born in the blockhouse in 1814, was the township's first white child.

Lincoln's funeral train passes a namesake town

Decades after Pennsylvania transplants named their new Ohio village for the Adams County seat they had left behind, that name took on an entirely unplanned second meaning. On April 30, 1865, the funeral train carrying Abraham Lincoln's body from Washington to its final burial in Springfield, Illinois rolled through the small railroad village of Gettysburg, Ohio -- less than two years after the far larger and bloodier battle at the original Gettysburg had turned that Pennsylvania town's name into shorthand for the war's cost. There is no record that the coincidence was noted at the time; the train was one of dozens of stops on a route built for mourning crowds, not commentary. But the double echo -- a Civil War president's funeral train passing an Ohio town named for the war's most famous battlefield -- has stuck in local memory since.

From tobacco depot to incubators sold around the world

Gettysburg's economy went through two distinct booms built on completely different goods. In the early 1900s, its position on the Richmond and Covington Railroad line made it a major regional shipping point for tobacco and grain; in 1907 alone the village shipped out 168 railcars of tobacco worth more than a million dollars, alongside nearly 400 carloads of grain -- a scale of trade already visible in the 1880 county history's account of local grain dealer E. George shipping over 200,000 bushels in a single season. That agricultural trade eventually gave way to a manufacturing story: the Petersime Incubator Company, founded in the village in 1922, built egg incubators shipped, by one 1933 account, to customers around the world. Petersime kept manufacturing in Gettysburg for more than eighty years before finally closing in 2006.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org

Groundwater wells (2 wells) The water here

• Gettysburg Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2020: 2 of 2 passed.

Ballot issues

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-09-10

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

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