Debra Sandoe McCauslin

Deb was born in Gettysburg and grew up during the civil rights movement. As an adult, she learned she was related to the first soldier killed there, George Washington Sandoe who lost his life June 26, 1863 when the Rebels first invaded Gettysburg. She grew up on the farmlands of Adams County on Yellow Hill where her father grew up and she learned there was a pre-Civil War, African-American community there that had a church which they used as their school around the 1870s. It was burned down in the 1890s by three white men according to local lore. McCauslin digs deep and does research on African-American history of Gettysburg and Adams County, Pennsylvania. Her specialty is the Bear Mountain 1845 kidnapping of Kitty Payne.