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Northumberland County, PA
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Created on March 21, 1772, from parts of Lancaster,
Cumberland, Berks, Bedford, and Northampton Counties. It
probably was named for the English county of the same
name. Sunbury, the county seat was laid out in 1772,
incorporated as a borough on March 24, 1797, and became
a city in 1921. It was named for an English village near
London.
 The
present county area is land acquired by purchases from
Indians in 1749 and 1768, but until the formation of
Lycoming County in 1795 it included a vast amount of
north central Pennsylvania as far as the Allegheny
River. Iroquois, Delaware, and Shawnee Indians once had
sites along the Susquehanna River. Fort Augusta (at
Sunbury) was a key point in frontier defense from 1756
to 1765, but permanent white settlement began in 1768.
Tories and Indians chastised the population in
1778–1779.
The confluence of the East and West Branches of the
Susquehanna made this a center for gathering lumber and
other products to move south. Canals improved the
arrangement. After 1835 rail cars carried anthracite
coal to the river and the county became a mining leader
in the 1850s. The older lumber and farming economy
contrasted with the anthracite economy of Mt. Carmel and
Shamokin; railroads rushed in to carry the coal directly
to the east. The lumber industry was enlarged by Ario
Pardee. The fourth largest anthracite producing county
until 1952, Northumberland then rose to its present
third place. Thomas Edison’s electric lights in Sunbury
in 1883 were a technical breakthrough paralleling Joseph
Priestley’s scientific discoveries, many of which were
made in his Northumberland home. Shamokin was the center
for agriculture in the central section of the county.
Milton became the site of an American Car & Foundry (ACF)
factory in the 1920s. County population has declined in
each census since 1930, when it stood at 128,504. Silk,
textiles, and cigars were once major products. Farms
cover 43 percent of the land, and Northumberland is a
leading county for producing chickens, swine, soybeans,
and barley. |
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