A stop on the Underground Railroad and a refuge for Black residents during the Battle of Gettysburg, the town of Yellow Hill was once a thriving community in Adams County’s Butler Township.
Then it was gone — but not forgotten.
“I think the Yellow Hill community is crucial in telling the story of the making of America and its struggles,” says local historian Debra McCauslin.
McCauslin has spent more than 20 years exploring the mystery and history of Yellow Hill and its inhabitants. She published her findings in Yellow Hill: Reconstructing the Past. Her journey began not with Yellow Hill itself, but with research on her ancestor George Washington Sandoe, the first Union soldier killed at the Battle of Gettysburg. “I got sidetracked by this incredible story,” she recalls. “I kept thinking, ‘Why aren’t people talking about this?’”
So, she set out to change that. Today, McCauslin offers private tours of the Yellow Hill area—about nine miles north of Gettysburg—as part of its connection to the Underground Railroad. The tours are offered in cooperation with Hollabaugh Brothers, Inc., a farm and market in Biglerville that owns the land surrounding the former Yellow Hill church and the remnants of its cemetery.
“It gives me chills to think of the history here,” says Ellie Hollabaugh Vranich, retail market and assistant business manager at Hollabaugh Brothers. “And the history we don’t know.”
McCauslin also has personal ties to the area. As a child, she visited her grandfather at Yellow Hill long after the Black community had disappeared. “I picked fruit there,” she said.
According to McCauslin, Black families first settled in the area in the late 1700s. Their population grew as the Yellow Hill community—believed to be named for the lighter complexion of some of its residents—built a church and established a cemetery. By 1900, however, most of its inhabitants were gone.
Given its proximity to the Mason-Dixon Line—just 20 miles from Maryland—Yellow Hill was a natural place for freedom seekers to settle. Yet the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850 also allowed slave catchers to cross into Pennsylvania and reclaim formerly enslaved people.
During the Battle of Gettysburg, many Black residents fled town and sought refuge in Yellow Hill, hoping to avoid capture by Confederate soldiers.
The area’s Quaker neighbors in Menallen Township, just north of Yellow Hill, offered critical support. “They cited a scripture in Deuteronomy, which I think is a compelling argument,” McCauslin explains:
“You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place that he shall choose within one of your towns, wherever it suits him. You shall not wrong him.” — Deuteronomy 23:15–16
The Menallen Quakers, who still worship at the Meeting House where they first gathered in 1780, were active participants in the Underground Railroad—alongside free Black residents such as Edward Mathews of Yellow Hill.
“It was dangerous work,” says McCauslin. “You were breaking federal law.” According to her research, freedom seekers would be taken to Mathews’ home, then guided under the cover of night to the home of Quaker Cyrus Griest, who hid them in his springhouse. “A tap on Griest’s bedroom window would let him know he had guests,” she added.
“I don’t think there were better people, and I have tremendous pride in that,” says Lisa Toffey-Burke, a descendant of Griest. “I grew up with the idea that it’s never wrong to do the right thing.”
Alisha Wansel Sanders, Gettysburg Borough Councilmember and a direct descendant of Mathews, calls Yellow Hill’s story a “hidden history.” Working with McCauslin, she has researched both local Black history and her own ancestry. “The fact that he was part of the Underground Railroad,” she says of Mathews. “The fact that he was a free man who owned his own land.”
Mathews and his wife Annie had 13 children and owned 16 acres—“unusual for a free Black man at the time,” McCauslin notes. In 1878, he donated land for a church and cemetery. The church later burned down and was never rebuilt; the cause remains undocumented, though local folklore claims it was arson.
Quakers and Black residents also collaborated in other acts of courage. When Catherine “Kitty” Payne, a freed woman living near Bendersville, was kidnapped under orders from a relative of her former enslaver, both groups came to her aid. “Kitty Payne breaks my heart,” says McCauslin. “She lost her home and her children.”
While Payne was imprisoned in Virginia fighting for her freedom, Griest paid her legal fees. Quakers and Black witnesses from Yellow Hill testified on her behalf during her 1845 trial. Payne was eventually freed, but never recovered from the ordeal, dying in 1850.
Today, little physical evidence of Yellow Hill remains. Only fragments of the cemetery survive. The last gravestone found there—belonging to Charlotte Naylor, buried in 1888—was removed for safekeeping by the Adams County Historical Society.
McCauslin notes that others once buried there include Charles Parker, a Civil War veteran later reinterred in Gettysburg. Parker contracted typhoid pneumonia during the war and died in 1877 at age 29.
Mathews’ sons also served in the war. The youngest, William H. Mtthews, ran away at 14 to join his older brothers Nelson and Samuel. “He wanted to fight,” says McCauslin. Black soldiers, she writes, “received lower pay, less food, and inferior uniforms and equipment.” All three brothers survived, though William was shot in the knee and lived with the injury until his death in 1891.
The Mathews home still stands. Gary Thomas, a Gettysburg resident, says his father was born there before the family moved away after his grandmother’s death. Thomas has photographed the scattered gravestones at the cemetery. “They were part of our community,” he says. “They mattered.”
Today, the home is owned by Doug Miller, site director at Pennsbury Manor, the estate of William Penn. His grandfather purchased the property in 1950. “It was to be her little country retreat,” Miller said of his grandmother. “We’re thrilled to have it. These are American heroes, and our society should hold them up and shine a light on them.”
No one knows exactly why Yellow Hill was abandoned. McCauslin and Wansel Sanders suggest some residents moved to nearby towns, while others faced increasing hostility. “I think you also had a lot of racism,” says Wansel Sanders. “The church was burned—that’s known. I don’t think that was an accident. The community felt distress, couldn’t rebuild, and didn’t feel welcome anymore.”
Some descendants have since returned. McCauslin once organized a reunion between the families of Kitty Payne and Cyrus Griest at the Menallen Meeting House. “It was a powerful moment,” she said.
Maribeth Staples, Payne’s great-great-granddaughter, called it “one of the milestone moments” of her life. The family also hiked up Bear Mountain to the site where Payne’s home once stood. “I told them, ‘You’re in church clothes and high heels; this is a dirt road,’” McCauslin recalls with a laugh. “But they were committed.”
Standing where Payne had been kidnapped, her descendants raised their hands, wrists up, and said together: “See this? No chains.”
Yellow Hill may be gone, but its legacy endures. “She imagined freedom,” says Staples of her ancestor, “so that we could be free.”
Photo Caption: Left to right: Debra McCauslin. Alisha Wansel Sanders and Gary Thomas at the Menallen Meeting House [Rick Gregory].
Arrange to have a private tour by contacting Debra McCauslin at 717-357-5812 or dmccauslin@hotmail.com.
Lisa Gregory is an experienced journalist whose articles have appeared in publications nationally and internationally including the Washington Post and U.S. News and World Report. She is also a frequent contributor to Frederick Magazine, Hagerstown Magazine and Carroll Magazine, among others. A published author of fiction, she has short stories in the books, “For the Love of Gettysburg” and “On Hallowed Ground.”
My husband and I went on Deb’s tour a few years ago. It was very enlightening. I also work with Doug Miller from time to time and he absolutely loves the house and its history. Thanks for this article.
This is so interesting. Thank you to local historians, especially Deb McCauslin, for their excellent research.
Fine reporting, Lisa. Thanks for your efforts and interest. It’s hard not to be interested when Deb and Alisha are telling their stories.
Cheers,
Randy Harris