Carlisle

The Carlisle Deluge, 1779

On the night of August 19, 1779, there occurred on the south side of the North Mountain about ten miles northwest of Carlisle a geological phenomenon that eventually drew the attention of the astronomer David Rittenhouse, Dr. Benjamin Franklin, the Secretary of War, and the president of Harvard College, and was described both in private letters among these and other men and also in the published proceedings of the second oldest learned society in the United States.

The Carlisle Deluge, 1779, Revisited

We report here that evidence for the 1779 Carlisle Deluge still exists. In the Summer, 1996 issue of Cumberland County History, Whitfield J. Bell described what he called the Carlisle Deluge. Bell used primary sources, mainly a letter from David Rittenhouse to Benjamin Franklin, to describe how, on the night of August 19, 1779, a thunderstorm with copious rain opened a gash on the south side of North (Blue) Mountain east of Flat Rock and northwest of the present Bloserville. Rocks and trees were carried down the mountain.

Carlisle Hospital

Photo of the front view of the Carlisle Hospital with two automobiles near entrance

For nearly a century, the Carlisle Hospital complex occupied a block of land in the southwest section of Carlisle. The limestone, landmark building was razed in 2007 following a decision by the hospital board to sell the hospital to Health Management Associates, Inc.

Carlisle's Black Rock

In 1818, Jacob Baughman of Carlisle drew a map of Carlisle noting the locations of churches, graveyards, public buildings, still houses, tanneries, and the names by which each of the borough’s street corners were known.1 His map shows “Black Rock” on the north west corner of Main and W

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