Irving College

The Deterioration of the Seminary Rule System at Irving College, 1909-1926

Irving College, located between Simpson and Main Streets in Mechanicsburg from 1856 through 1929, once offered the same type of curriculum, administrative trends, and student organizations that existed at many women's colleges throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Irving was founded in 1856, during the initial rush of female colleges, when no less than seven women's colleges were within a 50 mile radius of the county seat.

Lenore Embick Flower

As a genealogist, Lenore Embick Flower was very much aware of her ancestry. It may be proper, therefore, to begin with a mention of her immediate ancestors: John Dunbar and Agnes Waugh Greason Dunbar. A tombstone marks their grave at Carlisle's First Presbyterian Church-Meeting House Springs Cemetery. On the reverse side of the headstone are the names of six of their children who died of diphtheria during the 1850s.

The Mechanicsburg Legend of Washington Irving

Perhaps if a symbol were to be chosen for historians, it would be an owl. The wise old owl, who listens more than he speaks, just as the historian is supposed to observe and study before he publishes his essay into the past. Yet, upon reading historical essays, one begins to sense that historians might more appropriately march beneath the sign of the parrot. History, which began as the most inquisitive of arts, often degrades into repeating accepted wisdom, and the received tradition replaces individual inquiry.

Jane Deeter Rippin

Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on May 30, 1882, Jane Deeter was the middle child of five and the youngest of the daughters.1 She lived in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania with her mother while her father worked in Harrisburg, but came home on the weekends.