Gettysburg - The Slyder Farm

The farm of John Slyder was on the western side of Big Round Top, just down Plum Run from the Devil's Den. John had moved from Maryland and bought the 75 acre farm in 1849. By the 1860's it included a two story stone house, barn, blacksmith and carpenter shops, an orchard of peach and pear trees, and thirty acres of timber and eighteen of meadow.

On July 2nd Confederate General John B. Hood's Division swept across Slyder's farm in its advance toward the Devil's Den and Little Round Top, and the farm became a Confederate field hospital.

Two months after the battle, in September, John sold the farm and moved to Ohio.

The Slyder family had a couple of connections with other Gettysburg families. John's wife Catherine was the sister of Lydia Leister, whose house became General Meade's headquarters during the battle. And in October of 1863 John's son William married Josephine Miller, the granddaughter of Peter and Susan Rogers, whose farm lay on Emmitsburg Road.

The farm passed to the Snyder family, who owned it around the turn of the century. It is now owned by the National Park Service.