1896 – George Alfred Townsend (1841-1914), known for his work as a war correspondent as “Gath,” builds the world’s first War Correspondent Monument on his property, the site of the 1862 Civil War battle of Crampton’s Gap.
Townsend works at Philadelphia newspapers until he is hired by the New York Herald in 1862 to cover the unsuccessful Union Army campaign to capture Richmond. After he contracts malaria, he travels to Europe where he lectures on the Civil War. In 1865 he is back covering the War and expands his reporting on Lincoln’s assassination into a book on John Wilke Booth.
Continuing to be a popular correspondent Townsend gains fame as “Gath,” writing romance novels about Maryland. While researching in Washington County, he purchases a 100-acre property near Burkittsville on South Mountain. He builds an estate he calls “Gapland” and erects the War Correspondents’ Memorial Arch in 1896.
In 1903, Townsend moves to New York City dying in Philadelphia a decade later. His Gapland estate and the Arch are now the Gathland State Park on the Appalachian Trail.
