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Col. Simon S. Alter: California Gold Rush ‘49er

Image of Main Street, Placerville, El Dorado County from the Library of Congress

“Ho! For California” headlined an item in the March 21, 1849 issue of the Carlisle Herald. “A party of enterprising adventurers, from Carlisle, consisting of Messrs. Geo. Fleming, Esq., Col. Simon Alter, Samuel F. Gaenslen, Geo. Keller, Wm. Keller, John C. Williams, and William Humer, left this place on Monday morning last for California. The party proceeds via Pittsburgh to the rendezvous at Independence, Missouri, where they will probably join one of the large expeditions on the overland route to California.”

Charles H. Kruger

Image of Charles H. Kruger during Interview

Interview of Charles H. Kruger of Carlisle, Pennsylvania by Susan Meehan on January 27, 2016. The interview focuses on Kruger's family and early life, the Kruger Dairy and milk delivery, and Kruger's school experiences from elementary school to the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences.

Archibald Loudon (1754-1840)

Oil on canvas of Archibald Loudon, painted in 1807 by Cezeron.

Printer, publisher, postmaster, bookseller, paper manufacturer and author, Archibald Loudon was “the most interesting of the early printers and publishers of Carlisle.” Archibald, son of James and Christiana Loudon, was reportedly born at sea on August 24, 1754 during his parent’s emigration from Scotland.

J. P. Lyne (1800-1862): Coppersmith and Hardware Merchant

Scan of Lyne advertisement in the American Volunteer, December 19, 1850.

Fifty years after J. P. Lyne went out of business, an elderly man reminiscing about the Carlisle of his youth still remembered that “a mammoth wood and gilded sign of a padlock stood in front of J. P. Lyne’s hardware store.” Lyne worked as a coppersmith in Carlisle in the 1820s and 1830s, but by 1838 he had become a hardware merchant. The 1838 Triennial tax assessment listed “J. P. Lyne & Co., merchants.” A partnership with George W. Sheaffer was dissolved in 1845.

Francis Cezeron

Oil on canvas of Archibald Loudon, painted in 1807 by Cezeron.

Francis Cezeron an itinerant portrait artist was born in Virginia in 1747 and died in Kentucky in 1828. He passed through Western Pennsylvania painting portraits in the first decade of the nineteenth century. He appeared in Lancaster in 1806 as a teacher of dance and French. There he also painted profiles and knew painter, Jacob Eicholtz. In 1806 Cezeron placed ads in the Carlisle Herald stating that he was reopening his Schools for Dance and French. Ads appeared again in 1807 for the school.

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