What's in a Name: Hickorytown

The name "Hickorytown" is actually a misnomer on the word "town." What it refers to is a cluster of houses around two former taverns spread seven-tenths of a mile along Trindle Springs Road, three and a half miles east of Carlisle. It was this way in the 1840s, and little has changed over the years.

The name comes from the large number of hickory trees in the area when the first farmers settled the land. The early surveyors used these trees (as well as stones, stumps and other impermanent items) to mark the comers of the early surveys. Who named the village is not known, but the term was in use by the 1850s.

Trindle Springs Road was put through the area c. 1790. The land on which all of Hickorytown sits was patt of two patents. North of the road was the John Miller patent of 346 acres granted in 1775. When Middleton Township was divided, this became North Middleton Township and then later Middlesex Township with Trindle Springs Road the southern boundary for the township. The south side of Trindle Springs Road, South Middleton Township, was the Sam Irvin (Erwin, Irwin, Irvine) patent. The order for a survey was granted in 1767 to John Reed and James Sharron, who sold their rights to Sam Irvin. He had the land first surveyed in 1775. The connected warrantee map that accompanies this article clarifies the matter.

Hickorytown got its start as a set of homes for the tenant farmers who worked for both John Miller and Sam Irvin. It has been difficult to date the first tenant houses, but they were in existence by 1820. Miller, who lived in the large brick house at the intersection of Middlesex Road and Trindle Springs Road, had a tenant house across the road. Irvin, at the eastern end of the village, built several houses near the intersection of Trindle Springs Road and modern Hollenbaugh Road.

Miller and Irvin were no country bumpkins or poor farmers; they were wealthy men who were closely connected to the elite in Carlisle, where they probably spent much of their time.

When Miller died in 1811 his home was the brick house at the western end of town. All of his land across the road, with the exception of twenty acres, went to his son Joseph. John carved out two ten-acre tracts, almost perfectly square, just across the road for his daughter Elizabeth. In 1820 Joseph sold the farm to his brother-in-law Thomas Lindsay for $15,000. Lindsay was then living in Chambersburg and the farm was run by tenants. When Lindsay died in Chambersburg in 1838, his two daughters, Rebecca Gillespie and Ann Jones inherited the land. For two years they were absentee landowners, when they sold the farm to David Miller for $17,000. At this time there were only two 98 known houses north of Trindle Springs Road in Hickorytown. One was across from the brick house on the Elizabeth Miller land, the other was somewhere between that and Hollenbaugh Road. It was David Miller who broke up the large farm and in the 1840s began selling lots along Trindle Springs Road. No attempt will be made in this article to detail them all, the research has been done and can be found in the files of the Cumberland County Historical Society.

 Only two houses will be noted further. The first is the tenant house opposite the brick house. This was land given to Elizabeth Miller Duncan by her father. She, too, moved to Chambersburg and in 1829 sold the house and ten acres to Melchior Brenneman. Brenneman owned the brick house (then a tavern) and for most of the century this tract was tied to the tavern tract. A blacksmith shop was built prior to 1841; for many years it was rented out to a succession of blacksmiths.

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