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The Union Mills Homestead, the Shriver family homestead for six generations,
is located in Union Mills, Maryland,
about 17 miles south of Gettysburg, PA. The Homestead is now a museum of
American culture, operated by the Union Mills Homestead Foundation, a
non-profit foundation with all proceeds dedicated to the preservation and
restoration of the Union Mills Homestead Complex.
Become
a Member |
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Typical Hours
(except special
events; see below) |
May: Weekends noon - 4pm
June-August: Daily but Monday, Weekdays, 10am-4pm; weekends,
noon-4pm
September: Weekends, noon - 4pm
- click for more info on Guided Tours
Make your Wedding
special at Union Mills!
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May 4-6, 2018
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49th Annual Flower & Plant Market

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June 3, 2018 |
Union Mills Comes Alive
with Augmented Reality!
(Sun. 2pm) |
July
21-22, 2018 |
Civil War Encampment
and Living History
(Sat. & Sun. - 9am-dusk) -
registration form
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August
4, 2018
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48th Annual Old-Fashioned
Corn Roast Festival (Saturday 11-5)

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September 29, 2018 |
13th Annual
Maryland Microbrewery Festival (Saturday - 11-6)
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October 21,
2018 |
12th Annual
Mason-Dixon Jeep Gathering, (Sunday 10-3)
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November
17, 2018 |
Union Mills Christkindlmarkt
(Saturday 11-4)
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The Union Mills Homestead is available to host your
wedding or other
special event.
Contact
Jane Sewell, Executive Director, at 410-848-2288
or
[email protected]
The Homestead welcomes school and tour visits.
Shriver History and Genealogy
(see also
Links
below)
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Excerpts from the Union Mills Homestead Foundation Newsletter.
The Newsletter has been published continuously since 1975, and
reports on current events at the Homestead, and frequent articles on
the history of the Homestead and Mill. (Members
receive the current newsletter.)
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Helen Drury Macsherry, editor,,
Pastime: Life & Love
on the Homefront During the Civil War,
1861-1865, published in 2013
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David Lovelace,
The Shrivers: Under Two Flags,
published by the Foundation in June, 2003. Now reprinted.
Contact the
Homestead for more information.
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Mark K. Shriver,
A Good
Man: Rediscovering My Father. Biography of Sargent Shriver,
Jr., published in 2012.
Book signing at Union
Mills
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Samuel S. Shriver,
The
Green Books of Shriver History, 1888.
Project begun March 2002; completed, March
2003. (Includes 1826 Narrative of Judge Shriver as
included in the 1888 issue of the Green Book and Alsenborn church
records, 1721.) Click here for
painting of the Alsenborn church.
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"The Shriver Family of Little Conewago"
by Kenneth K. Kroh, June, 1950. A brief (5-page) history of
the early Shrivers in America (1700s); drawn from other Shriver
sources. Link to Kroh's cover letter, and from there to the
paper itself. Added October, 2001.
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Excerpts from The History of the Shriver Family.
Added October, 2001.
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The building of the Shriver Homestead
in 1797 (excerpt from the "Red Book").
History of the Union Mills Homestead
Foundation
(addendum to the "Red Book" for the Bicentennial) (added April, 2002).
Purchase of the land
for Union Mills, and history of the Bankert family.
Added Feb. 2006
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The Shriver Coat of Arms.
Other sites have other Shriver Coats of Arms; this one is from the
cover of the Green Book; history of the Shriver family.
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Description of the Shriver Family Papers
in the collection of the Maryland
Historical Society. According to the MHS,
"overall, the Shriver Family Papers are an essential collection for
the political, economic and social history of Maryland in the Middle
Period. Moreover, the richness and size of the collections provide
an excellent opportunity for the study of family history."
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In memory of Esther L. Shriver
- Aug. 11, 1928 - Jan. 12, 2006;
Obituary
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In memory of James McSherry Shriver,
Jr. - 2/19/1928-8/27/2010;
Obituaries
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In memory of Charles P.
(Chuck) Ives, III -
October 22, 2012
Obituary in the Baltimore Sun
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In memory of R. Sargent Shriver, Jr.
- 1915-2011 (note that his parents were second cousins, both
descended from Andrew Shriver)
R. Sargent Shriver, Jr.,
b. 1915
son of R.
Sargent Shriver, b. 1878 and Hilda Shriver, b. 1882 (2nd
cousins)
Hilda was daughter of Thomas H. Shriver, b. 1846
son of William
Shriver, b. 1796
son of
Andrew Shriver, b. 1762
R. Sargent Shriver was son of Henry Shriver, b. 1841
son of Joseph
Shriver, b. 1806
son of Andrew Shriver, b. 1762
Union Mills
Correspondence and Diaries
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Images and
transcripts of Shriver letters from Union
Mills. (This will be a long project;
begun October, 2000)
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Picture postcards
to and from residents of Union Mills, 1900-1910; featuring poetry by
H. Wirt Shriver to his grandsons and to his son-in-law.
(added February 2000)
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History of
Rural Free Delivery at Union Mills -- a Photo Essay.
(added January 2000)
Proud to be linked at the
Museum of Online Museums, April
2002
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Diary of Mary Winifred Shriver
at age 13 and 14, describing the
everyday life of a child at Union Mills in 1889.
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Shriver letters of the Civil War, in the collection of the
University of Notre Dame Rare Books and Special Collections.
The Shriver correspondence
is a small group of mostly war-related notes and letters, written
from 1860 to 1865 by the brothers Andrew Keiser Shriver (four items)
and Thomas Herbert Shriver (three items). The authors were two of
the thirteen children of William and Mary Owings Shriver of Union
Mills, Carroll County, Maryland.
Union Mills and Shriver
Photos
Other Links
(please report broken links)
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In 1863, the Battle of
Gettysburg nearly happened at Union Mills, and actions in
Carroll County played a key role in the run-up to that battle. See the discussion
by Ronald A. Church of
the Pipe Creek Line. See also
Approaches to Gettysburg.
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General Meade's Pipe Creek Circular (Part 1)
by John Allen Miller.
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Just South of Gettysburg:
Carroll County, Maryland in the Civil War, Personal Accounts and
Descriptions of a Maryland Border County, 1861-1865, by
Dr. Frederic Shriver Klein.
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Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen,
Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War,
St. Martin's Press, (June, 2003). Fictional account of the battle,
set along the Pipe Creek Line at Union Mills.
Click here for details of the
August 9, 2003 book signing at the Homestead.
"Gettysburg is a
creative, clever, and fascinating ‘what if?’ novel that promises to
excite and entertain America’s legions of Civil War buffs."—James
Carville
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History of Littlestown, PA. Several mentions of the
Shriver family, including
Herbert Shriver's role as a guide to the Confederate troops
prior to the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 , and the
B.F. Shriver canning plant in Littlestown.
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Looks like Union Mills is part of the
Geocaching sport -
GIS hide-and-seek game -- Summer 2005.
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Small Museum
Association - an all
volunteer organization serving small museums in the mid-Atlantic
region and beyond.
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Open Hearth Cooking at Union Mills
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Congratulations
Jessica and Kevin!
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Union Mills
cast iron firebacks featured as "Picture of the Month" at
www.hearthcook.com
Other Genealogy Links
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