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Dauphin County, PA
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Created on March 4, 1785, from part of Lancaster County,
and named for the Dauphin, the title of nobility given
to the eldest sons of kings of France. Harrisburg, the
county seat, was named for its founder, John Harris, and
was incorporated as a borough on April 13, 1791. It was
chartered as a city on March 19, 1860.
 John
Harris’s trading post stood on the Susquehanna as early
as 1720. Presbyterian groups at Paxton and Manada Gap
were the earliest settlers, but German Lutherans formed
the Hummelstown and Middletown communities in the 1760s.
The Paxton Boys movement of 1763–1764 slaughtered
helpless Indians and tried to intimidate the provincial
government into providing more defense on the frontier
and more legislative representation. The State’s capitol
was moved from Lancaster to Harrisburg in 1812, and the
next year Lebanon County was created from Dauphin’s
eastern townships. In the mid-nineteenth century Dauphin
was a canal and railroad center. Later, steel mills went
up in Steelton. In Middletown, American Tube and Iron
Co. flourished, and railroad cars were made there.
Today, Milton Hershey’s industrial legacy is still
apparent and AMP is a national leader. Thirty percent of
the land is farmed, and this is a leading county in
sheep and poultry. In total value its farm products rank
twenty-fifth among the state’s sixty-seven counties. |
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