The Farnsworth House Inn

The story

Today a bed-and-breakfast with a restaurant and a busy ghost-tour program, the Farnsworth House Inn stands in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Its history is older than its name. The inn dates the first part of the house to 1810 and credits John McFarlane, its first recorded owner, though Wikipedia notes the exact date is unclear. A brick addition followed in 1833. From 1852 and through the Civil War, the property belonged to Harvey D. Sweney, which is why it is also known as the Sweney House.

During the Battle of Gettysburg, from July 1 to 3, 1863, Confederate sharpshooters used the house. More than 100 bullet scars still pit its south and east sides, most of them left by Union soldiers firing back from Cemetery Hill. After the fighting, the building served as a field hospital. Licensed Battlefield Guide Timothy H. Smith, interviewed by Gettysburg Daily in 2009, pointed out that surviving records say little about exactly which Confederate units occupied it.

The house is also linked to the death of Jennie Wade, the only civilian killed during the battle. The inn says the stray bullet that struck her is believed to have come from its walls. That claim should be read as local tradition: Gettysburg Daily notes that several buildings in town have made the same claim. The inn's owners also say that Confederate General Lewis Armistead was treated here, but other accounts place his death at the George Spangler farm, so this too is disputed.

In November 1863, the procession heading to the dedication of the national cemetery, where Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, passed in front of the house. A contemporary account quoted on Wikipedia describes Lincoln riding a bay horse and bowing to the crowds at the doors and windows along the way.

In the twentieth century the house passed to the Black family. The date is uncertain: Wikipedia gives George Black as owner from 1918 to 1958, while the inn says the purchase took place in 1909. The building served at various times as a tourist home and a shop. In 1972 it was bought by the family that still runs it, who renamed it after Brigadier General Elon J. Farnsworth, a Union cavalry officer killed at Gettysburg.

The legend

The ghosts of the Farnsworth House are part of the business, and that context matters. The owning family says that at one point as many as 16 spirits occupied the house, each with a distinct name and personality, and the inn uses its haunted reputation in its promotional material. It describes itself as the "Birthplace of Ghost Storytelling in Gettysburg" and says it has offered ghost tours for decades, though no dated first report of a haunting has been found.

The best-known figure is "Jeremy", described as a child spirit who lives in the house. A guest room bears his name, and guests honor him by leaving coins beside the old coffin shown in the cellar. The inn does not explain who Jeremy was supposed to be, and only one source mentions him.

The attic, or garret, is tied to the Confederate sharpshooters who fired from the house in 1863. They are the theme of one of the inn's tours, and the attic appears on its own list of paranormal "areas of interest" along with the cellar, the dining rooms, the guest rooms and the grounds.

The "Sara Black Room" is presented as one of the most active spots. According to the owners' claims summarized on Wikipedia, spirits there can even be photographed from the street. The inn says the room takes its name from an occupant of the Civil War era.

Specific guest experiences are hard to verify. The inn quotes a guest journal entry from the Longstreet Room, dated July 2026, describing an electric candle that switched itself back on, a smell of vanilla, the sensation of being touched while asleep, whispers and the sound of a snare drum outside, and a rocking chair that had moved. It is a single account, selected and published by the business. Other ghost names circulating online, such as a midwife called "Mary", are not confirmed by any reliable source.

On television, the Klinge brothers and their Everyday Paranormal team visited the Farnsworth House during the second season of Ghost Lab, in an episode titled "Dead Will Rise Again" that also covered the Jennie Wade House and an inn in nearby Fairfield. The inn now accepts requests from paranormal teams, TV crews and podcasters only with prior approval, and may charge fees or require insurance. USA Today readers ranked it third in a poll of haunted hotels, according to the inn.

No independent skeptical investigation was found. The honest summary is that the haunting rests almost entirely on the owners' storytelling and guest anecdotes, while the bullet-scarred walls and the battle history are documented fact.

What remains today

The house still operates as an inn, with 12 guest rooms spread between the main house, garden rooms and a cottage, plus a restaurant. The bullet scars on the south and east sides remain. The cellar, with its antique coffin, is used for the inn's nightly ghost-story tour. Photographs of the inn, its welcome sign and the stone listing tour options are available on Wikimedia Commons.

Visiting

The Farnsworth House Inn is open to the public as a business: you can stay overnight, eat at the restaurant or book one of its tours. The program includes a nightly Haunted Cellar Tour, a "Shadow Shooters & Phantom Regiments" tour of the attic and town, a walking tour restricted to visitors 16 and older, storytelling evenings and paid ghost hunts of various lengths, up to a four-hour paranormal night. The inn bills "An Evening of Spiritualism" as a theatrical show and explicitly not a seance. Check the official website for current schedules, prices and age limits.

To put the ghost stories in context, combine a visit with the Gettysburg battlefield and the Jennie Wade House, also in town. Paranormal groups wishing to investigate must contact the inn in advance; unapproved filming or investigations are not permitted.

Sources

1. Wikimedia Commons category : The Farnsworth House Inn — Wikimedia Commons
2. USGS 1:250000-scale Quadrangle for Baltimore, MD 1957 — U.S. Geological Survey, 1957 · Public domain (USGS)
3. USGS 1:62500-scale Quadrangle for Gettysburg, PA 1908 — U.S. Geological Survey, 1908 · Public domain (USGS)
4. About — Farnsworth House Inn (official) — Farnsworth House Inn (official
5. Accommodations — Farnsworth House Inn (official) — Farnsworth House Inn (official
6. Farnsworth House Inn (official home page)
7. Gettysburg's Sweney House / Farnsworth House battle damage — Gettysburg Daily (5 Feb 2009, with Licensed Battlefield Guide Timothy H. Smith) — Gettysburg Daily (5 Feb 2009, with Licensed Battlefield Guide Timothy H. Smith
8. Official website
9. Paranormal — Farnsworth House Inn (official) — Farnsworth House Inn (official
10. Play (tours and events) — Farnsworth House Inn (official) — Farnsworth House Inn (official
11. Wikipedia article — Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Text written by AI from the sources above and checked by a separate AI fact-check (how we work). Images: credits and licenses under each picture.