The Cumberland County Historical Encyclopedia is an expanding publication on the history of the Cumberland County. Covering a wide range of topics and the entire Cumberland County geographic region, the Encyclopedia seeks to be an initial entry point to those interested in the County's history. Entries seek to provide a list of resources available as well as showcasing some of the Cumberland County Historical Society's own collections.
In November of 1934, the bodies of three young girls were found on South Mountain along Centerville Road (Rt. 233) in Penn Township. No readily identifiable information was available to determine who they were, and the ensuing investigation of the mystery attracted nation-wide attention.
The old farm house and barn of my paternal grandfather, Charles Burnett “C. B.” Baker Sr. (1860-1933), stood just off the Walnut Bottom Rd, being situated on Strohm Road, Lees Crossroads, Shippensburg. In 2005, it was leveled, a farm equipment company buying all but a few of the original acres.
Known in town as “Bossy” Baker, Van Baker was born a slave in Virginia about the year 1820. When The Star and Enterprise newspaper reported that Mr.
In June 1847, William Webb advertised in the Carlisle Herald that he had just returned from the city “with a large and very superior lot of Metallic wigs, three quarter wigs, ladies plain Frizettes or front braids; also a small assortment of Ladies curls.” He also had “hair, tooth, nail
Born on July 1, 1913 in Harrisburg, PA, Lourene W. George Barto was the daughter of Lloyd and Romaine Senseman Walker.
Robert Moore, a Carlisle weaver, was appointed to take care of Reverend Daniel Batwell’s land in Middleton Township, Cumberland County.
Whitfield Jenks Bell, Jr., (3 December, 1914-2 January, 2009) was born in Newburgh, New York, and grew up in suburban Philadelphia.1 After graduating from Lower Merion High School, he enrolled in Dickinson College, graduating in the class of 1935.
Summer after summer Stephen Benet and his siblings,who were all writers, visited their maternal grandparents William and Mary (Mahon) Rose who resided in a Carlisle home located at the northwest corner of North Hanover and West Penn Streets.
Big Spring Creek is a five-mile-long tributary of Conodoguinet Creek in Cumberland County. It is formed by the fifth largest spring in Pennsylvania with a median flow of 18 million gallons a day. The headwaters are near U.S.
An extraordinarily informative advertisement was inserted in the October 19, 1785, issue of The Carlisle Gazette by Alexander Biggs who thought very highly of his skills as a tailor and a party planner who courted the local gentry.