Recent

The year 1993 marked the centennial of the building of St. Patrick's Shrine Church in Carlisle. Just as the Rev. Dr. Henry G. Ganss published a comprehensive history of the parish in 1895, so it was deemed appropriate to prepare a brief history of the present church and its people during the last century.

At a Place Called the Boiling Springs. Edited by Richard L. Tritt and Randy Watts. Illustrated, 247 pp. Boiling Springs Sesquicentennial Publications Committee, 1995. $35, cloth.

There is no mystery about the name Carlisle Springs, and no research is required to learn its origin. What other name would anyone give to a sulphur spring of medicinal properties located only five miles from the county seat of Cumberland County? What is of special interest, however, is that Carlisle Springs was one of many springs, baths, and spas that flourished as popular resorts for health and recreation in the United States in the second third of the nineteenth century.

The prominent McCormick family dynasty of Harrisburg was founded by James McCormick, the only son of William McCormick of East Pennsborough township, Cumberland County. Though a great deal has been written concerning the vast financial empire erected by James McCormick in nineteenth century Harrisburg, little attention has been paid to his father, a moderately situated yeoman farmer and distiller, who met his untimely end in a farm accident during the opening decade of the nineteenth century.