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Cumberland County, PA
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Created on January 27, 1750 from part of Lancaster
County, and named for Cumberland County in England.
Carlisle, the county seat since 1752, was incorporated
as a borough on April 13, 1782. It was named for the
county town of England’s Cumberland County. Shippensburg
was the county seat from 1750 to 1752.
 First
settlement was in a group of sheds at the site of
Shippensburg, 1730. Title was acquired from Indians in
1736, but the area was contested with Maryland until
1737. Cumberland bore the brunt of Indian attacks from
the west in 1756–1759 and 1763–1764. The sale of wheat
to Baltimore was important to the early economy. The
Cumberland Valley Railroad began in the 1830s. Iron
works and paper mills sprang up, although iron
production collapsed after 1900. Dickinson College was
chartered in 1783. Carlisle Barracks began as a powder
magazine in 1777, became the Army’s cavalry school, the
Indian School (1879– 1918), and since 1951 the Army War
College. Until the 1960s Carlisle was known for
manufacturing carpets, clothes, publications, and auto
tires, and the county has had a strong lumber industry.
After 1900 the population grew on the west shore of the
Susquehanna because of railroad yards and state
government. Because of public sector jobs the county has
not been hurt badly by the national trend toward
deindustrialization, although Cumberland no longer is a
strong manufacturing area. Farms cover 44 percent of the
county, and it is among the top ten counties in
production of dairy products, corn, wheat, apples, hogs,
and poultry. Famous residents have included James
Wilson, Gov. Joseph Ritner, inventor Daniel Drawbaugh,
athlete Jim Thorpe, and Molly Pitcher.
Carlisle produced several Revolutionary leaders, but it
was a center of opposition to the U.S. Constitution. A
fugitive slave case, Oliver vs. Kauffman, in 1847,
helped bring about the national Compromise of 1850. The
Confederate army occupied Carlisle in 1863. |
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