Cumberland County Horse Thief Detecting and Protection Societies

Horses were vital for transportation and farming, and horse stealing was a chronic problem. In the nineteenth century, horse thief detection and protection societies were formed in many states. These societies were member based, and their object was the recovery and protection of their members’ animals.

An article in a Carlisle newspaper of 1914, shows how these societies operated. On a Saturday night in November 1914, a horse and buggy belonging to John Quigley was stolen from his house on Ridge Street in Carlisle. Being a member of the Carlisle Horse Protection Society, Quigley notified the police who notified the Society “and arrangements were made at once to put seven riders in the field. The Society was able in a short time to call off six of the riders, for one of them, John Craighead of Carlisle, recovered the horse at the foot of the mountain back of Barnitz.”¹

The Carlisle Horse Protection Society was chartered in 1894. Its mission was the recovery of its members stolen horses and the detection of the thieves.² Curtis Kost of Middlesex Township was the President of the company, Hon. Theodore Cornman was its treasurer and Jacob Hemminger the secretary.

When the Allen and East Pennsboro Horse Protective Society held their annual meeting in Mechanicsburg in 1900, they reported that they had 600 members. They also reported that “a number of horses were stolen the past year…” but were recovered by their society. The Carlisle Horse Protection Society also held their annual meeting in January 1900, and they reported that no horses belonging to their members had been stolen during the previous year.³

In 1915, The Carlisle Horse Protective Society held their twenty-second annual meeting at the court house. After the election of officers and other business, a resolution to publish and send out lists of the Society’s members to county blacksmiths who have brands of the association in their possession was defeated. Then a debate arose as to which foot of the members’ horses should be branded.⁴

Inevitably, the automobile and machine-driven farm equipment wiped out the need for these societies, and in 1932 the Carlisle Horse Protection Society petitioned the court to dissolve their organization.⁵