Image: Dam on Mountain Creek by Jim Bradley

The Elizabeth V. and George F. Gardner Digital Library Logo

An initiative of the Cumberland County Historical Society the Elizabeth V. and George F. Gardner Digital Library seeks to fulfill the Society's mission of collecting, engaging, and sharing the stories of Cumberland County.

Highlighted Stories

E. Jean Bixler

Jean Bixler during interview

Interview of E. Jean Bixler of Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania for the Elizabeth V. and George F. Gardner Digital Library. Bixler discusses growing up in Boiling Springs as well as her family.

Wanda Hunter

Wanda Hunter

Interview of Wanda Hunter for the Elizabeth V. and George F. Gardner Digital Library. Hunter discusses growing up as a Black Woman in Carlisle including the history of the Carlisle School District's segregation and integration policies, and Lincoln Cemetery.

Highlighted Entries

Venus, slave of Thomas Craighead, was Sister of the first published American Negro poet, Phillis Wheatley

Phillis Wheatley

Thomas Craighead’s slave Venus: Sister of the first published American Negro poet Phillis Wheatley. T.C. was Thomas Craighead (1789-1865) the son of John Craighead and his wife Jane Lamb.  The “old Thomas Craighead” he refers to in his letter was his grandfather who died in 1807. In 1845, T.C. also contributed a history of incidents relating to his family that was published in I.D. Rupp’s History of Dauphin, Cumberland, Perry Counties…. p. 440-444.

Mrs. Sarah A. Faber: From Carlisle to Constantinople

Print shows a bird's-eye view of many pedestrians and a horse-drawn carriage on the Galata Bridge, which spans the Golden Horn at Eminönü, Istanbul, Turkey, with minarets and mosques visible in the background

When Sarah Filey was growing up in rural Cumberland County in the 1830s and 1840s, she could not have imagined that ten years of her life would be spent more than 5,000 miles away in Constantinople, Turkey.