AIthough the record of John Armstrong, Senior, is fairly complete, and biographies of his sons James and John are available because, like their father, they both served as Congressman, that of his wife and her family, his father, brothers and sisters are sketchy. This paper undertakes an examination of the family with emphasis on those members.
John Armstrong was born in County Fermanagh, Ireland about the year 1717 or 1720. A surveyor, he settles in Pennsylvania, first in York County and then in the recently created county of Cumberland.
John Armstrong has rightly been labeled "the First Citizen of Carlisle. "He was a justice of the peace, the principal official of local government in the British dominions; a county judge, chief land surveyor of Cumberland County, assemblyman, colonel of the colonial Pennsylvania Regiment, an original member of the Pennsylvania revolutionary committee of safety; brigadier general of the Continental Army, major general of the Pennsylvania militia, delegate to the Continental Congress, and an original trustee of Dickinson College.