In 1918, as the war with Germany and the Central Powers was coming to an end, the United States faced another, more subtle, and seemingly invincible enemy. This was the Spanish influenza. Although on a smaller scale and of much shorter duration, it made some think of the Black Death that had decimated Europe in the Middle Ages.
Recently published by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission is a 216-page, new edition of its popular Guide to the State Historical Ma1kers of Pennsylvania. The compiler is George R. Beyer, a Commission historian who manages the marker program. Another state historian, Harold Myers, has written introductions to the twelve sections of the book which correspond with the dozen geographical regions into which the Commonwealth is divided for the marker purposes.
When considering those things of cultural significance in our heritage, one rarely, if ever, thinks of tombstones. Yet pre-1850 stones and their art offer valuable insight into how our ancestors viewed death and life after death, and also reflect changes in the perception of death and rebirth.
Founded in 1751 by Proprietor Thomas Penn, the town of Carlisle was erected to meet the mounting social, political, and economic needs of the ever-increasing number of people settling the rich agricultural hinterlands of Pennsylvania's Cumberland Valley. Once established, Carlisle served as both the official political and judicial seat of the newly-formed county of Cumberland and as one of the major social and economic focal points of backcountry Pennsylvania—acting as a major transit point for many westward-bound travellers.
There is a rugged knot of mountains where Cumberland, Franklin, and Perry Counties come together, crossed now by roads with odd names such as "Cow Pen Road" or "Three Square Hollow Road". It is lovely in the Fall with the foliage in bright color and again in the late spring when the mountain laurel froths in sunlit openings.
In April 1968, syndicated columnist James J. Kilpatrick delivered the Detroit Historical Society's annual Lewis Cass Lecture. The lectureship was then twenty years old, and Kilpatrick followed such distinguished historians as Bruce Carron and Sylvester K. Stevens. Unlike his predecessors, Kilpatrick was a journalist, and so he took his inspiration from Thomas Carlyle's belief that "Histories are a kind of distilled newspapers."
Forty years after he emigrated from Pennsylvania to Kansas in 1872 Jacob Sackman wrote an historical and genealogical account of a later group of pioneers and their settlements, filled with several score names of settlers. Under the tide "The Third Pennsylvania Colony," it was printed in the Wilson World (Ellsworth County, Kansas) of September 24, 1914. With several editorial omissions and modern paragraphing, it is reprinted here from a copy provided by Clarke Garrett.{Editor's Note}.
In 1734 the land on the west shore of the Susquehanna River was opened for homesteading, and the first settlers were permitted to cross the river to legally obtain land. Trappers and Indian traders had been traveling through the valley to the west and the south for years, but they were not permitted to reside or claim land. The Penn's had previously purchased this land from the Indians, but some claims remained, and it had not been opened to the public.
Carlisle was an optimistic town on the move in the early 1900’s and as the new century dawned it was welcomed with “Such a clanging of bells, blowing of whistles, shooting of guns, etc., as was never heard before, even on mornings of the glorious fourths.”12
Today we will board an N-gauge passenger train in Harrisburg and travel through Carlisle 20 miles west of Harrisburg. This trip will be illustrated by using this 3' by 7' model of 1920 Carlisle. In 1920 tracks for Cumberland Valley Railroad passenger trains ran in the center of Main Street, now called High Street. These tracks were laid in 1837 and were in continuous use until 1936. The passenger station was located on the northwest corner of Main and North Pitt Streets.