Alexandria, [District of Columbia], 25 February 1810. Thomas Cruse sat down, opened his desk, took out a clean sheet of paper, dipped his pen in the bottle of ink and wrote “Dear Sir.” He was writing to his brother-in-law, Judge James Hamilton of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Largely overlooked in local histories, Samuel Postlethwaite deserves a prominent place on a list of early Cumberland County notables. A frontier trader, he helped supply the Continental Army in the American Revolution and played an active role in Cumberland County’s government and social institutions during the early days of the American Republic. In the 1790’s, he served in the Pennsylvania legislature as the senator from Cumberland County.
The 2014 edition of Cumberland County History includes articles on a wide variety of topics stretching from the eighteenth century to the twentieth century. The articles focus on individuals, caves, tugboats, schools, and flags — quite an unusual collection.
Interview of Bob Loy for the Elizabeth V. and George F. Gardner Digital Library. Loy discusses his time on the Carlisle High School Band under the leadership of Band Director Hans Uberseder.
Interview of Bobbe Fornwalt for the Elizabeth V. and George F. Gardner Digital Library. Fornwalt discusses her grandfather Clarence Smith the first band director of the Carlisle High School.
Ephraim Steel, the youngest child of Ephraim and Esther Steel,1 was born in Carlisle on November 13, 1795. His father was a merchant and an Associate Judge of Cumberland County who died in 1814. 2 Ephraim, Jr., likely apprenticed with one of the many silversmiths working in Carlisle in the early decades of the nineteenth century.
It was a time for great rejoicing that first week of Fall 1776. In the capital on the Delaware the good people of Philadelphia, still exhilarated from the wine of national independence first sipped only two months before were sampling another heavy draught—life under a new and radically democratic State government which had just replaced an oft times unpopular proprietorship. One in congruous event diluted the pure air of celebration.
“Every man in Cumberland County is a rioter at heart,” lamented Governor John Penn the year he ordered his family’s land in Lower Manor subdivided and sold. The concurrence of his remark and his order to sell may have been mere chance, but young Penn in this instance established himself as seer and prophet. When he used the word “rioter” he spoke of the seething Scotch-Irish, who were virtually the only group then living in the County.
With Civil War papers already a white plague, why add to the epidemic? The answer involves mention of another disease, local pride. But should we be proud or not? No one in a full 100 years has marshalled the facts of 1863, when the Confederate army rolled to the West Shore of the Susquehanna River.
We were extremely fortunate in 2012 to receive two outstanding collections that contained photos related to the Girl Scouts of America. This increased our number of Girl Scout related photos from just a handful to hundreds of significant images.