Garrett, Clarke W.

The Artificial Swan, the Elephant, and the One Hundred Educated Canaries: Public Performance in Cumberland County 1800-1870

In the first decades of the nineteenth century, it was no simple matter for professional performers to get to the Cumberland Valley, and local newspaper coverage of entertainment is so sketchy that we can only guess at how often theatrical companies, musical groups, or other entertainers included Carlisle, Shippensburg, Chambersburg, and other towns on their itineraries.

We are Not in the Cumberland Valley Any More, Toto! The Great Migration to Kansas in the 1870's

Since Cumberland County was first settled, the Cumberland Valley has been a stopping-place for many people on the way to somewhere else, whether it was on down the Valley to Virginia and Kentucky, or, later, into the Ohio Country. In the decades before the Civil War, migration was continuous. As some people moved in, others moved out. Place names like New Carlisle, Ohio and Mechanicsburg, Indiana bear witness to the Cumberland Valley origins of many of the first settlers of the fertile prairies of the Midwest.