"Lutheran Seminary Gettysburg" Topic

Thanks to all those who replied to my posting re the Gateway, which will soon be repainted burgundy as per the colourised photo.

My next poser is: what was the Seminary like at the time of the battle and might it too have been painted, rather than the brown brick as now appears?

Any info will be greatly appreciated.

If memory serves, and from what I've read over the years, in addition to the Seminary appearing in some of Don Troiani's paintings(he would have researched this particular detail extensively to get its appearance right), it appears as bare brick in his paintings of the battle.

This photo is taken just a few days after the battle, it's one of the best views of the Seminary and one of the clearest. It APPEARS from the shade of the brick areas, and from this resolution that the bricks are not painted, but then again being a black and white photo it's difficult to say for sure. However, if you open the link of the photo in a new tab and zoom in on it, you can still see the mortar lines in between the bricks. If the building was painted, those mortar lines would be covered in paint and therefore would not be visible. So that detail to me is very telling which leads towards the brick NOT being painted.

My gut tells me that a brick and wooden building like this would have only had the wooden parts painted, which in this case were white, and the brick would have been left bare.

In all my years of looking at period photos of Civil War towns and cities, the only painting that I can recall seeing on brick would be like the names of companies or establishments, painted in white on the sides of buildings – but the bricks themselves were not painted.

I just recently read that the bronze (brass?) roof of the cupola was green. Unfortunately I can't recall where I read it, so that makes my post almost worthless.

Tom

Could well be copper or lead which would oxidize to green?

Here is a link to the Seminary Ridge Museum which includes some modern photos as well as info and links to the local historical society. You may be able to find or get answers from them.

link

A couple of additional links on the subject:

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Here is a link to details on recent restoration work:

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It seems that the recent restoration/preservation work was done to restore the structure, convert it into a museum and keep as much of the original look while bringing the building up to modern standards and building code restrictions. I'm therefore guessing that the current look is close to the original.

I did research at the Historical society and got more information from the person in charge of the restoration also. The brick on the building was never painted.
The cupola top was copper and thus turns a faded green in a very short time. There were no dormer windows on on the roof at the time of them battle. The pic you posted above is from the side not facing the road. There were no doors on the side that is now facing the road. The Portico that now exists on that side was added after the turn of the century to honor the veterans. As for the original color of the trim, I was told by the restoration Manager that it was white and that the current restoration color of pale yellow was chosen for some other reason.

Many thanks.