During the Civil War, a twenty-year-old correspondent named George Townsend rose to become the leading journalist of his era. “Gath”, as he called himself, made a fortune, particularly because of his book entitled, The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth.
During his prestigious newspaper career, he wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer, the New York Herald, the New York World (where he covered the assassination of Abraham Lincoln), the Chicago Tribune and the New York Graphic.
But alas, even though Gath became a household name, amassed riches that enabled him to purchase an estate in the Maryland mountains and erect a monument to war correspondents (shown above), he died nearly penniless in Philadelphia. (There wasn’t even enough money left to move his body to the tomb he had built on his estate featuring the inscription, “Good Night — Gath” above the door.)
The state of Maryland purchased the property and named it Gathland State Park. Today the Appalachian Trail passes through Gathland and past the ruins of Gath’s lofty dreams that came back down to earth. It’s a neat place to encounter along what is a very historical section of trail. In fact, the entire route along South Mountain through the state of Maryland was home to intense fighting as Union and Confederate troops positioned themselves for signigicant battles in Harpers Ferry, WV and Antietam, MD.