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.
On January 1, 1876, the Alexander’s of Bloserville gave a dinner to celebrate the beginning of America’s Centennial year. One of their guests was so impressed that he sent a letter describing it to the editor of the Carlisle Weekly Herald who published it.
Settlers in colonial America adopted the use of tobacco after it was introduced to them by native peoples in the 1600s. Tobacco plantations proliferated as the demand for tobacco grew. After tobacco was harvested, it had to be cured.
“Ho! For California” headlined an item in the March 21, 1849 issue of the Carlisle Herald. “A party of enterprising adventurers, from Carlisle, consisting of Messrs. Geo. Fleming, Esq., Col. Simon Alter, Samuel F. Gaenslen, Geo. Keller, Wm. Keller, John C. Williams, and William Humer, left this place on Monday morning last for California. The party proceeds via Pittsburgh to the rendezvous at Independence, Missouri, where they will probably join one of the large expeditions on the overland route to California.”
In April 1839, Sandel Arnold applied to the authorities in Wurttemberg, Germany to immigrate to America.[1] Two years later, he was peddling goods out of his wagon to the residents of Cumberland County. Sandel Arnold was born in 1790 in Jebenhausen in the Goppingen District of (Württemberg) Germany.
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.
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.