Note: Dr. Herrold delivered the Annual Address at the dinner of the Cumberland County Historical Society on October 17, 2000. The address was principally the Reverend Mr. Ault's sermon of 1873, which contained an historical account of the Reformed Church in Pennsylvania and the Cumberland Valley. It is reprinted here from the original manuscript in possession of St. Paul's United Church of Christ, Mechanicsburg.
At 10:30 a.m. on Memorial Day, May 28, 2007, representatives of the Locust Grove Cemetery Committee, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, the Shippensburg Historical Society, and Shippensburg University unveiled an official blue and gold Pennsylvania Historical Marker at Locust Grove Cemetery on North Queen Street in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania.
Dr. Silas C. Swallow had already established a widely circulated reputation for being a determined fighter against the evils of strong drink and drugs before he became a resident of Cumberland County. The good Doctor of Divinity had other lesser-known qualities of character which were revealed during the ten years he lived in Camp Hill.
America's first historian, Abiel Holmes, records that by 1792 enterprising New Englanders were enjoying success in the cultivation of silk worms. The idea was to begin an American source for silk and thus avoid importing the luxury from France or other European brokers. Silk had been appreciated in the West since at least the days of Augustus, being brought from China to Syria by way of India.
Bob Dylan's words defined a generation. Violence, politics, and societal changes characterized the turbulent 1960s in the United States. American culture evolved drastically during this decade, and these changes appeared most dramatically on college campuses throughout the nation. Today, when anyone mentions students and the 1960s, they tend to think of student protests against the Vietnam War.
Jane Smead was the niece of my great-grandmother, Jane who married John Hays, and the daughter of Alexander Dallas Bache Smead. Far back into my youth I have memories of her fortress-like, solid brick house commanding the south -east corner of West and South Streets in Carlisle. On West Street the yard was extremely deep and guarded by a high wooden fence.
“I fear I shall never arrive at the point where a letter from you doesn't cause the sun to shine brighter upon its arrival." So wrote a corporal in the American Expeditionary Forces in France to his wife at home in 1919.
The year 1993 marked the centennial of the building of St. Patrick's Shrine Church in Carlisle. Just as the Rev. Dr. Henry G. Ganss published a comprehensive history of the parish in 1895, so it was deemed appropriate to prepare a brief history of the present church and its people during the last century.
It is indeed an Unalloyed pleasure to have the privilege of appearing before the Hamilton Library Association this evening to turn back to the period when I first became a resident of Cumberland County. Although forty years have elapsed since that period, and fifteen years have passed since I removed from your midst, I am sincere when I state that nowhere else have I made and retained better and warmer friends than those I left in the Cumberland Valley. There is something in your charming landscape. In your beautiful scenery and in your romantic history embalmed "In Old Bellaire" and its setting that must be the secret you have in retaining the affection and esteem of those who have been residents in your midst.
The guns fired at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, echoed throughout central Pennsylvania. The citizens of the Cumberland and Susquehanna valleys answered this call with a ready response. Such large numbers of men volunteered that companies were turned away from enlisting in the Army.