It is impossible to compile an accurate list of crimes committed and punishments given during the provincial period because of incomplete records. There are instances where the record contains no more than the entry, "The King" v. the name of the defendant. In quite a number of cases it is not recorded whether the indictment was returned as a true bill or marked ignoramus. Some entries contain the name of the defendant, the fact that the indictment was returned a true bill, but make no mention of the disposition of the case. Many defendants were released on recognizance to appear at a later session, but a number of those released do not appear again in the records.
Two hundred and fifty years ago Cumberland County was the focus of one of the three battles in 1758 that would change the outcome of the French and Indian War in North America. Carlisle, the new seat of Cumberland County, was the launching point for the third military expedition to attempt to take Fort Duquesne from the French and open up the Ohio country to English traders. General John Forbes would lead this campaign and succeed where others had failed.
In 1978, Cumberland County Government and Cumberland County Historical Society (CCHS) entered into a formal agreement to transfer older government and court records. The records, officially on long-term loan to the Society according to the agreement, are housed at the Society in an archival environment. Acid free supplies are used to store the records and the Society's archives provide a temperature and humidity controlled environment to better preserve these early documents.
Some idea of economic condition of Pennsylvania during the Panic of 1819 may be obtained from the report of a committee of the State Senate appointed on December 10, 1819, to inquire into "the Extent and Causes of the present General Distress throughout the Commonwealth." The long years of war in Europe and of the war of the United States with Great Britain, although they brought wealth and prosperity to some, also produced inflation and speculation.
Our story begins at eleven o'clock in the morning on July 17, 1866, when 24 Cumberland County physicians arrived at the Court House in Carlisle. This was the largest gathering of physicians in the county up to that time and, in addition to seven doctors from Carlisle, included practitioners from Shippensburg, Newville, Mechanicsburg, New Cumberland, West Fairview, and a number of other smaller points in the county.
Lying broken on the ground in the underbrush of a neglected Cumberland County burying site is the only known stone carved by Jacob Heneman. Who was he? Who were the other carvers of Cumberland County? There are 228 Cumberland County burying sites listed in Cemeteries of Cumberland County by Bob Davidson (Carlisle, PA: Cumberland County Historical Society, 2000). After removing the sixty-four that are identified as leveled, moved, or unknown, 164 are still in existence.
An estimated 3,200 citizens of Cumberland County served in the military in the course of the Civil War. With the 150th anniversary of the Civil War upon us there is renewed interest in the war and the role Cumberland County citizens played during this crucial era of our nation's history.
In October of 1859 the well-known raid by John Brown and his men occurred at Harper's Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). Most members of the Brown group were captured at the time of the raid, but several men escaped including John E. Cook and Albert Hazlett who fled into Pennsylvania. These facts serve as the backdrop for events that occurred in Carlisle later in October.
Thomas R. McIntosh, a teacher and bibliophile from Harrisburg, has called my attention to an interesting book by John Owen, D.D., which he had recently. It was printed in Carlisle, by George Kline in 1792 under the title, "The Death of Death in the Death of Christ."