Rapid improvements in modes of transportation occurred during the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. These innovations altered the structure of the United States demographically, causing some population centers to flourish, others to die, and still others to be born. Major cities, such as Baltimore and Philadelphia, competed to build more extensive and efficient transportation systems to the hinterlands so that they could become the dominate outlets for the goods of the rural areas. Small towns in the interior of Pennsylvania which became entangled in this transportation web, such as Carlisle, prospered as a result of this competition.
I. ROADS
"The road between the Springs and Carlisle, in point of roughness and general irregularity, is among the most unpleasant in the United States." H .C.O., 18111
Men select a site for settlement with two requirements in mind: natural resources and ease of transporting goods from the new site to other settlements. James Hamilton in 1751, when determining a location for Carlisle as the "county town" for the recently established Cumberland County, was no exception. He chose a site "somewhere on the Waters issuing from Letorts' Spring into the River Conedoguinet"[sic].2 to give the settlers a supply of good water, meadows, pastures, timber, stone and lime, as well as access to the Susquehanna River by the Conodoguinet. The town, according to Hamilton, would be ideally located for trade with both the Indians and Philadelphia, and was "commodious to the great road leading from Harris's Ferry3 to the Potowmec and to other necessary Roads as well into the neighbouring County, as over the Passes in the Blue Mountain."4 Hamilton placed Carlisle in the center of a valley created by the Blue Mountains in the north, and South Mountain in the south. The final site for Carlisle was a mile and a half from the Conodoguinet, 18 miles from Harrisburg and the Susquehanna River, 85 miles from Baltimore and 118 miles from Philadelphia.
From 1751 to 1793 Carlisle grew steadily despite the fact that the only method of reaching it from Philadelphia or Baltimore was by foot, horseback, or wagon along rather poorly maintained roads. West of Carlisle, the roads became even worse; one could travel there only by pack horse.
A variety of factors caused the growth of Carlisle during this period. In 1757 the British established a military post at Carlisle as one of a series of forts built between the Potomac and the Susquehanna after Braddock's defeat by the Indians two years before. John Armstrong and Robert Thornburg founded the Carlisle Iron Works (later known as Pine Grove Furnace) in 1762, five miles from Carlisle. The Iron Works produced between 12 and 15 tons of metal a week, along with stoves, fire backs, and hollow ware. In 1764 the Iron Works became an armory by order of John Penn, then governor of Pennsylvania. During the Revolution the armory cast cannon, bored guns, and prepared ammunition for the American army.5 Carlisle was an important place of rendevouz for American troops during the war; British prisoners were frequently sent to Carlisle for secure confinement. 6
To mark the 125th anniversary of the Hamilton Library Association Cumberland County History reprints here the Association's first annual report, for the year 1881, and a subsequent annual report, for 1900.