During the mid-nineteenth century photography exploded into popularity in Europe and the United States. Beginning with the introduction of the daguerreotype in 1839, the technique of using a chemical process to fix an image onto a sensitized metal plate captivated the imagination of many: those who wished to preserve the memory of a loved one, those who wished to record historical events, those who wished to create artistic impressions, and those who attempted to make a living satisfying the wishes of all the others.
John Harris, Jr., the founder of Harrisburg, born on the Pennsylvania frontier in 1727, grew up in Paxton Township on the east side of the Susquehanna River in what was then Harris's Ferry. In 1748 he inherited the land from his immigrant father, and from that time until his death in 1791 he contributed to its development from a fragmented frontier settlement to a structured community town.
He could be an unlikable man-loud, arrogant, vulgar; but he was also civicminded and generous to his workers; and he deserves to be remembered. He was, from the last decade of the nineteenth to the third decade of the twentieth century, one of the most prominent businessmen in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. In any era he would have been a colorful character, a volatile yet romantic man who made his fortune from shoes and flowers.
Cumberland County is fortunate to have had a number of excellent photographers who left behind a fascinating visual record of Cumberland County people, places and events. Charles C. Lachman, Frank Beidel, Charles F. Himes, A. A. Line, John N. Choate, Maynard Hoover, and Clyde A. Laughlin are just a few names familiar to those who know early local photographers.
Mr. President and Members of the Hamilton Library Association:—
I desire to say, in the first place, that I esteem it an honor to have been invited to prepare a paper for this occasion. Having listened to some of the papers here presented I fully understood that the preparation of a paper to be read here involved serious labor and that a random talk would not be acceptable.
The James Wilson chair on exhibit at the Cumberland County Historical Society is a large, classical Chippendale chair, perhaps too big for all of us, Wilson's cultural descendants, to sit in. For not only was James Wilson a big man physically, he was a big man politically. Indeed, during his time, it may surely be said that he was an oversized American in every significant respect.
On October 18, 2007, the Cumberland County Historical Society received notification from the National Park Service that the application for Kaufman's Station at the Village of Boiling Springs had been evaluated and was officially named a site on the Park Service's National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.
On June 8, 1833, the Honorable John Reed, President Judge of the Cumberland County Court of Common Pleas, wrote a letter to the Trustees of Dickinson College in which he proposed opening a law school under his tutelage that would have “some nominal connection with the College.”
After decades of introducing Dickinson students to the fascination of the history of Carlisle and Cumberland County, four years ago I at last had the opportunity to explore the topic myself, first in a book on leisure in the nineteenth century, and then, after retirement, on the important but ignored phenomenon of migration out of the Cumberland Valley.
Early settlement of Lemoyne began in 1724 when John Kelso and his ferrying partner and putative relative John Harris built a stone house at the east end of the future borough.