Harris, John

Robert Whitehill and the Struggle for Civil Rights

“Every man in Cumberland County is a rioter at heart,” lamented Governor John Penn the year he ordered his family’s land in Lower Manor subdivided and sold. The concurrence of his remark and his order to sell may have been mere chance, but young Penn in this instance established himself as seer and prophet. When he used the word “rioter” he spoke of the seething Scotch-Irish, who were virtually the only group then living in the County.

What's in a Name? West Fairview

Variously known as Neidigtown, Maytown, Poverty Point, and Fairview, the village at the mouth of the Condoguinet got its final name in 1852 with the establishment there of a post office. There being another Maytown, in Lancaster County plus a Fairview in Erie County, and "Poverty Point" tending to be an auslander's slur, "West" was added in reference to the view from the town of the Susquehanna and the East Shore.