Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg

The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg was founded in eighteen twenty-six, the oldest continuously operating Lutheran seminary in the United States. Classes began September fifth of that year under Samuel Simon Schmucker, and the seminary moved to Seminary Ridge in eighteen thirty-two, and in eighteen thirty-five the seminary enrolled Daniel Alexander Payne, one of the first African Americans to study theology in the country. On July first, eighteen sixty-three, the cupola of that same building became a Union observation post as Confederates pushed through town, and Schmucker Hall afterward served as the largest field hospital at Gettysburg.

The ridge itself bears the seminary's name to this day. The institution merged with the Philadelphia Lutheran Seminary in twenty seventeen to become United Lutheran Seminary.