"He gave River City the library building, bur he left all the books to her." Meredith Willson, The Music Man
That verse summarizes the history of public libraries in many American small towns. A generous citizen provides for a library and puts it in the care of a guardian. The public library in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, is no exception, and it is the purpose here to address some aspects of its history, in particular its nature as a public and memorial library.
The basic facts are these: On 6 February 1900, in Carlisle Judge Edward W Biddle granted a charter to The J. Herman Bosler Memorial Library, "for the use and benefit of the citizens of said Borough and sojourners therein."1 The petitioners were mainly members of the Bosler family but included Biddies (related by marriage to the Boslers), as well as Charles Francis Himes, retired professor of chemistry at Dickinson College, and the Rev. Mr. George Norcross, pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church. The Bosler Library's board of directors was fixed at eleven, namely the petitioners. Prominent among them was Gertrude Bosler Biddle, daughter of J. Herman Bosler and wife to Judge Biddle. From the beginning she served on the library's Book Committee, and from 1931 to 1946 she was president of the board of direcrors.2
Before proceeding, a word about John Herman Bosler. He was born in 1830 in Hogestown, one of the older villages of eastern Cumberland County.3 When he was 20, he attended Dickinson for a year, then became a business partner of his father, owner of a mill and a distillery. With the exception of two years in Huntingdon County as an ironmonger, Bosler lived and worked in Cumberland County. He had a hand in several businesses, chiefly in Carlisle, although he also owned vast and successful ranches in Wyoming. In mid-November 1897, he was "seized with a stroke of apoplexy, caused by the bursting of a small blood vessel in the brain."4 He lingered for several days. As The Evening Sentinel reported, "Long and sad was the watching and waiting, until the end came, when the spirit rook its flight."5 He was buried in Ashland Cemetery in Carlisle, and the services were conducted from the Second Presbyterian Church, with the Rev. Mr. Norcross officiating. On the day of Bosler's funeral, local factories, banks, and colleges closed. Among the dignitaries attending the funeral were the presidents of Dickinson and Wilson colleges, as well as Moorehead C. Kennedy, vice president of the Cumberland Valley Railroad, and Edwin Warfield, president of the Fidelity & Deposit Company, Baltimore.6
Although Bosler was a Democrat, the Republican Carlisle Daily Herald praised him in a front-page editorial. "He was," the paper said, "a warm-hearted friend, a kind neighbor, and a public-spirited citizen."7 Moreover, "In his family he was idolized, and his children and grand-children were inwrapped [sic] in his heart." It was this filial piety that gave birth to the idea of a memorial library in his name. After all, he had once proposed the idea for a public library, but other businessmen were slow to match the funds he meant to advance. Moreover, in 1874 he had been one of the eight men petitioning the Court to charter the Hamilton Library Association.8
The Bosler Library occupied a new building on West High Street, symmetrical and brick with a facade "constructed of Avondale marble with a massive columned entrance."9 It was designed to resemble an ancient Greek temple, and in Greek fashion, one ascended a flight of ten marble steps to large double doors made to look like bronze. By 1905, the library boasted an endowment of $20,000 and a total of 4,400 books. 10 It also contained rare manuscripts, notably the commission—dated 25 June 1775, and signed by John Hancock—of William Thompson of Carlisle as the first colonel in the Continental Army.11 This document had belonged to the Rev. Mr. Joseph A. Murray, a Presbyterian minister and local historian. Upon his death, his daughter, wife to Charles Francis Himes, donated the commission to the Bosler Library. Such a treasure was the sort sought out by the Hamilton Library, and by and large the two libraries pursued separate vocations—the Hamilton focusing on local history, the Bosler on general reference and popular literature.
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