New museum opens in G'burg

Erik Dorr knew he should have been wearing gloves.

More than 150 years old, the wallet in his hand had been worn thin even in the days it spent time in the pockets of the 16th president.

But touching Abraham Lincoln's wallet - the one he kept with him through the majority of his presidency - just isn't the same with a layer of latex separating skin from leather.

Cool as it is, the wallet is just one of more than 4,000 historical objects on display in Dorr's recently opened Gettysburg Museum of History.

From Civil War bullets that met in mid-air to the momentos of another assassinated president, historical artifacts line the walls at 219 Baltimore St. - a historical building itself and the site of where

Dorr's collection began.

The museum is a shrine to the lifelong efforts of the 41-year-old Hanover native who began collecting historical objects as a teenager.

He can't pick out a favorite, but Dorr admits there's something special about the wallet.

"You can relate to it," Dorr said as he turned it over in his hands. "(Lincoln) had it with him all the time."

The Gettysburg Museum of History opened three weeks ago, free of charge, to the public.

Artifacts from the Civil War - the Battle of Gettysburg, especially - World I and II, and the John F. Kennedy years dominate the collection. Objects include a bullet-riddled breastwork from the Union's defensive position on Culp's Hill, an autograph from every U.S. President and the childhood doodles of Caroline Kennedy on White House note paper.

Hidden among the military and presidential artifacts, however, are those that stand out in their own way - like the ghostly images of the nation's first "spiritual" photographer, a blood-stained cloth from the tourniquet of John Wilkes Booth or a lock of Napoleon's hair.

Diverse as Dorr's collection has become, it all started in the basement of his grandparents' Gettysburg home, where he often spent weekends as a child.

Dorr said he discovered boxes of Civil War artifacts that had been collected by his great-great grandfather, Frederick Pfeffer, in the years after the Battle of Gettysburg. Pfeffer farmed part of the land where the infamous Pickett's Charge occurred and regularly scooped up objects during his work.

"You hit a cannon ball with a plow blade, you're going to damage your plow," Dorr said.

According to an 1887 newspaper account that Dorr located, Pfeffer discovered a burial trench with the bodies of seven Confederate soldiers located near what is now the 12th New Jersey monument. Dorr said his great-great grandfather kept buttons and other momentos from the bodies, then re-buried the bones.

"As far as I know, they're still there," he said.

Artifacts from the family collection are among the thousands of others displayed at Dorr's museum.

Particularly prominent, however, are the objects of another of Dorr's fascinations: the John F. Kennedy years.

Two rooms at the museum are devoted to the assassinated president's life, career and death.

Most of the objects - like the cigar box left on his Oval Office desk and notes the president made during the Cuban missile crisis - were saved by Kennedy's personal secretary, Evelyn Lincoln.

"Anytime anything went in the trash can, she took it," Dorr said.

Dorr said the museum's opening has been a dream come true. For years, Dorr said he bought, traded and sold historical objects to build his collection.

Now he wants to share it with the public.

"I want to be a museum curator - not an artifact dealer," Dorr said.

What: The Gettysburg Museum of History recently opened its display of more than 4,000 artifacts to the public. Objects on display date back to all periods of American history. The Civil War, World War I and World War II and the John F. Kennedy years are featured most prominently.

When: The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Where: 219 Baltimore St. in Gettysburg