TED ALEXANDER’ ............................. Pages

from Greencastle Old Home Week magazine 2022

by Herald-Mail Media

ALL ABOARD AT THE HIGH LINE TRAIN STATION .......Pages

The panel also will include John Miller, executive director of the Shippensburg Historical Society; Janet Pollard, executive director of the Franklin County Visitors Bureau; Stephen Recker, a long-time friend of the late historian; and Dave Sciamanna, retired president of the Greater Chambersburg Chamber of Commerce.

“I think I’m actually the person who knew him the longest,” said Shockey, who also is president of this year’s Old Home Week celebration. She and Alexander attended school together.

“He would help me in the history classes,” she said. “His love of history carried from his childhood until his passing.”

Alexander, who died in 2020, turned that early knowledge of history into an academic pursuit. He held a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Maryland College Park and a master’s degree in history from the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

Later, he turned it into a career.

He served for more than a quarter-century as chief historian at the Antietam National Battlefi eld near Sharpsburg, Md., and became a nationally renowned historian.

“He is a legend. There’s not a lot of people I would say that about, but he was a legend at Sharpsburg,” John Howard, retired superintendent at the Antietam National Battlefi eld, said after Alexander’s death.

Alexander also wrote books, including “The Battle of Antietam: The Bloodiest Day” and “Southern Revenge!: Civil War History of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.” He also wrote, edited and contributed to other books and more than 200 articles and book reviews.

A descendant of two members of the 126th PA Regiment, he wrote “The 126th Pennsylvania” about Franklin County’s Civil War veterans. And he co-authored “When War Passed this Way,” with his uncle, William P. Conrad.

For many years, Alexander wrote a column for the Echo Pilot, and many of those pieces were related to the Civil War.

Alexander founded and coordinated the Chambersburg Civil War Seminars and Tours.

He also raised thousands of dollars to preserve battlefi elds.

“No other individual has raised as much money to preserve Civil War battlefi elds as Ted Alexander. Nobody. ... He told me that was his greatest contribution to history,” Dennis Frye, retired chief historian at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, said after Alexander’s death.

Shockey said Alexander, his mother Jane, and his aunt, Nan Flaherty, served on an early committee that led to the formation of the AllisonAntrum Museum. He also founded the museum’s monthly speaker series.

“With his background, Ted was able to get nationally renowned historians and authors to come to the museum in Greencastle to talk about wide-ranging Civil War topics as well as authors and news people like William ‘Bill’ Nack, who wrote the story of (the race horse) Secretariat,” Shockey wrote.

“Visitors came from surrounding towns and counties as far away as Fulton County and Adams County and Washington County, Md.,” she continued. “For 20 years, the greater Greencastle-Antrim area was blessed by Ted’s knowledge and love of history. He was adamant that the speakers had to be wide-ranging — far beyond the topic of the Civil War.”

He also had a keen connection to Old Home Week, leading a special presentation each year. One year, Alexander led the Reminiscing panel discussion with other Vietnam veterans. Alexander, a Marine, served two tours in Vietnam and was awarded the Navy Commendation Medal with Combat V, according to an online biography.

Alexander had a “larger-thanlife personality,” Shockey said. But he remained humble and “very interested” in others’ research.

MORE AT THE MUSEUM

An open house will be held at Allison-Antrim Museum daily during Old Home Week from 1 to 4 p.m., except for Saturday, Aug. 13, when it will be run from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

On Sunday, Aug. 7, visitors will be able to meet the museum directors.

The Colonial Williamsburg Weavers will be on the museum grounds demonstrating weaving, spinning and dyeing from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 11.

Each day, there will be self-guided tours of the 1860 Irwin Museum House, where the grand piano and tuxedo of Old Home Week founder Philip Baer can be seen, and the 1860s German bank barn.

Exhibits in the barn include the Greencastle-Antrim Civil War Collection; the late Katty Grosh’s collection of Old Home Week ribbons and programs; artifacts from the Ebbert Spring archeological collection; and a rare 1850s Plains rifl e and Native American painted buffalo robe from Joseph Craig’s collection.