History & local legend
Twin Sycamores is the historic John Winebrenner House at Baltimore and Lefever streets in Gettysburg. Winebrenner was a tanner, and his home stood amid fighting between Union and Confederate skirmishers in 1863. The building later became the home of Mr. G’s Ice Cream, with outdoor seating beneath its surviving sycamore.
A local ghost-tour story gives the house a child who plays with toy soldiers, arranging them in battle formation. A visitor recorded hearing that story during an October 2007 walking tour, when only one of the two trees that gave the property its nickname remained. The visitor also photographed the house and tree that evening and pointed to a bright orb in one image as a possible sign of the haunting.
Sources
- Philly Reconstructed, Haunted Gettysburg, October 8, 2007, eyewitness account of hearing the toy-soldier tale on the tour
- Philly Reconstructed, Twin Sycamore, photographer’s original October 2007 orb caption
- Gettysburg Daily, Gettysburg’s John Winebrenner House Battle Damage, location, census, historic nickname and skirmishing
- Gettysburg Daily, Another Baltimore Street Witness Tree, surviving and lost trees at the Winebrenner house
- Mr. G’s Ice Cream, present-day use of the historic Twin Sycamores house
