It seems to be an axiom of geography that settlements arise along rivers and heavy trade routes. One has only to consider the city-states of ancient Mesopotamia, or Rome, Paris, or London. In many ways Pennsylvania in the eighteenth century was similar more to an ancient or medieval land than to anything of the twentieth century. One is intrigued, then, when, beginning in a place and an age lacking aqueducts, plumbing, and canals, there is a prosperous place defying this axiom.
Mechanicsburg is located on a heavily trafficked trade route, the Trindle Road, but it is not directly on a river or a stream. Ten miles to the east of it is the Susquehanna River; a mile to the west is Trindle Spring Run. A few miles to the north and south are, respectively, the Conodoguinet and Yellow Breeches creeks. So conspicuous was this arid situation that, before it bore its current name of Mechanicsburg, the place was called "Dry Town" by its residents.
Mechanicsburg's place in Pennsylvania is logical, save for its distance from flowing water. It is roughly midway between Harrisburg and Carlisle, in the middle of the fertile limestone basin of the Cumberland Valley. One wonders about the reasons for Mechanicsburg being but a mile from Trindle Spring Run. Mechanicsburg is an orderly borough, planned rather on the standard grid-iron pattern. devised by Hippodamus and popularized by William Penn.1 Given such forethought by Mechanicsburg's founders, one is at a loss at first to explain why more thought was not given to the benefits of planning the town along a spring-fed stream. Minor investigation reveals that a settlement - hardly a town - on that stream precedes Dry Town by a century. That older site, Trindle Springs, has disappeared from all but topographical maps2 Thus, the reasons for that disappearance also engage one's curiosity. This paper intends to show that the prime reason lies in the fortunes of competitive commerce. Man, gregarious and often migratory, plays a prominent role as well.
The Trindle Road, termed Main Street within Mechanicsburg, and the very name Trindle bear attention first. According to legend, the road is based upon an ancient Indian trail. In its current designation State Route 641 it runs from Camp Hill to Shade Gap. It was formally declared open by the Commonwealth in 1795, but its opening had been the subject of petition since 1765.3 The road's association with the euphonious Lenni Lenape, or the Shawnee, is both plausible and charming, and rather peripheral to this inquiry. Whatever its origins, it is the thread connecting the points of Mechanicsburg and its predecessor, Trindle Springs.
Towns often start in strange ways, following paths not first expected by their planners. The farther we are removed from those founding days, furthermore, the more difficult it becomes to reconstruct just how a town began. After the passage of a century or more, most tangible vestiges of the early days are gone and we are left with only the old myths and oral traditions. So it is with Mechanicsburg. Almost.
Roy Harold Stone (22 June, 1914-18 November, 2007), universally known as Harold, often as Stoney, was a barber in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. He worked as a barber from his days as an apprentice at age fourteen until his retirement at age ninety-two.1