National War Correspondents Memorial
We decided to drive up to South Mountain this afternoon. We started out at with a visit to the Washington Monument. It was quite hazy, though, and the view wasn’t much to speak of. Also, the tower was closed, so we couldn’t go up it. From there we went to the three gaps that were the principal sites of fighting in the Battle of South Mountain in mid-September, 1962. They are, from north to south, Turner’s Gap, Fox’s Gap, and Crampton’s Gap.
The National War Correspondents Memorial, shown here, is in Crampton’s Gap in Gathland State Park. It was built in 1896 by Civil War correspondent George Alfred “Gath” Townsend (January 30, 1841 – April 15, 1914), who built a home for himself here in the early 1880s. He also built himself a mausoleum but is buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.
On our drive we happened to go by the South Mountain Creamery and stopped for ice cream.