Gettysburg skull was of remains found at Gettysburg and reportedly from a Civil War soldier. The Gettysburg skull was scheduled to be auction off on Tuesday. However, because of protests, the Gettysburg skull auction has been stopped and according to officials, the skull will instead be donated by the auction company for burial with honors.
According to the Associated Press, the auction company holding the Gettysburg skull is Estate Auction Co. of Hershey. They had reportedly listed the skull for sale at an auction Tuesday in Hagerstown, Md. Unexpectedly so, the auction apparently resulted in protests by the U.S. National Park Service in Gettysburg and others.
Because of the protests, the auction company had to remove the listing of the Gettysburg skull from a public auction website. Replacing the listing was a statement from the company which said that they are donating the skull to the Park Service instead. The statement regarding the Gettysburg skull read, "At the auction company's request, it remains as part of the catalog due to its historical value."
In a news release Tuesday, the Gettysburg National Military Park and the nonprofit Gettysburg Foundation said that the remains had been donated to the foundation late Monday. According to the announcement, after the authentication of the Gettysburg skull, it will then be donated to the park "for interment with full military honors in the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg," Daily Local reports.
According to the park and the foundation, the donation of the Gettysburg skull resulted from an overwhelming and unprecedented outcry from concerned citizens felt by the auction organizers.
In an interview with WHAG, auctioneer Tom Taylor said that he believed "like the National Park Service told me, it should have a proper burial."
In a statement by Gettysburg National Military Park Superintendent Ed Clark, officials were grateful for the occasion "to honor what is very likely an American veteran and have his final resting place recognized."
According to the auction site, the remains of the Gettysburg skull were found back in 1949 while a garden was being tilled on the Benner Farm in Gettysburg. Taylor said that along with 13 other artifacts, the Gettysburg skull was notarized and recorded in handwritten documents as having been found two miles north of a barn utilized as a field hospital in the Battle of Gettysburg.
Meanwhile, according to Gettysburg park spokeswoman Katie Lawhon, there are two Benner Farms in Gettysburg, and one of them was really known to have been a hospital during the war.
Gettysburg skull auction was reportedly the first time a soldier's remains were being offered for sale, told Lawhon in an interview with New York Daily Record.
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