With the publications and fundraising to find the soldier behind the children’s picture, there was a thought to create a facility that would house families and or children that lost a father figure from the Civil War. The National Homestead at Gettysburg, located at 777 Baltimore Street, was created for the orphans that remained after the Civil War.
When Elizabeth and Peter Thorn moved into the Evergreen Gatehouse in 1855, their neighbors were Captain John and his wife Ester Myers. The two-story brick house was built almost twenty years prior in 1836. During the battle of Gettysburg, it served as one of the headquarters for the Union army for Major General Oliver O. Howard, along with being a field hospital. With the proceeds from the National Association of Philadelphia with the direction of physician Doctor John Bourns, the National Orphanage Homestead was officially dedicated on November 20, 1866.
The following Spring 1867, Ulysses S. Grant was photographed with some newly arrived orphans at the entrance. With the loss of her husband, there was a good change that Philinda Betsy Ensworth Humiston and her children were one of the first residents of the orphanage. Philinda stated that she was a the institutional wardrobe mistress, and the first headmistress. At the beginning, the homestead was quite successful, but when Philinda left in 1869 to get married for the third time in New York, things changed for the worse.
Below is a picture of the boys and the girls standing outside of the Orphan on Baltimore Street.
After Philinda left, the Orphanage brought in a new headmistress called Rosa J. Carmichael.