Salem Church on the Carlisle Pike in Hampden Township, the three-span stone bridge at Fisher’s Fording (Houston’s Mill), and many substantial stone houses east of Carlisle were built by William McHose and his brother John between the years 1810 and 1826.
The National Register of Historic Places was organized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966.
Isabella Oliver, (July 16, 1771—June 7, 1843), once known as the “poetess of the Conodoguinet,” or more colorfully as that creek’s “muse,” was the second--and the first female--published Cumberland County poet in 1805 with Poems on Various Subjects, following the unknown writer of The Unequal Conflict in 1792.
As time passes there is an increasing nostalgia for the one-room school which so many persons attended and which passed from the countryside in the 1950s. Nationwide, in the early 1900s, an astonishing one-half of the children attended 212,000 one-room schools.
“Every man in Cumberland County is a rioter at heart,” lamented Governor John Penn the year he ordered his family’s land in Lower Manor subdivided and sold. The concurrence of his remark and his order to sell may have been mere chance, but young Penn in this instance established himself as seer and prophet. When he used the word “rioter” he spoke of the seething Scotch-Irish, who were virtually the only group then living in the County.
Silver spoons and tableware were considered valuable assets in 1780. Spoons and a few other pieces of tableware such as “Mustard Potts” represent entries among a handful of the county’s residents. They are not found in the earliest county tax lists.
Interview of Jill Sunday Bartoli and Thomas Sunday for the Elizabeth V. and George F. Gardner Digital Library. Bartoli and Sunday discuss the Sunday Family of New Kingston, Pennsylvania and their parents restaurant the Country House.
A collection of correspondence and memorabilia belonging to Vance Criswell McCormick rests in the archives of the Historical Society of Dauphin County. A part of the sixth generation of a Cumberland County family, he was born in Silver Spring Township in 1872. His family had settled along the Conodoguinet Creek before 1736. He wintered in Harrisburg and summered first at Rose Garden, Upper Allen Township, and later until his death in 1945 at the home of his wife, "Cedar Cliff," in Lower Allen Township.
"'Black Jack’ was a famous cook,” wrote Jeremiah Zeamer, editor of the American Volunteer newspaper. “He had a great reputation as a cook and caterer. Whenever in that part of the county there was a wedding, a dance, or a party of any kind for which a feast was to be prepared, ‘Black Jack’ was sent for to superintend the cooking and set the table, and so well did he do this that he was always in high favor with people who had appetites.”
Willow Mill, the only mill building still standing in Silver Spring Township, was a substantial industrial complex in its prime. Built in approximately 1794, the mill was still grinding grain through the end of the 1800s. The site then transitioned into an outdoor retreat and amusement park.