Historic Timeline of Cumberland County

  • 1720 - James Letort establishes trading post
  • 1737 - Shippensburg founded
  • 1750 - Cumberland County created
  • 1751 - Carlisle founded as county seat
  • 1753 - Benjamin Franklin negotiates a treaty with Native Americans at Carlisle
  • 1764 - Regina Hartmann, Indian captive, returned
  • 1775 - William Thompson commissioned as first Colonel of US army
  • 1776 - Three county attorneys sign the Declaration of Independence: James Wilson, James Smith, and George Ross
  • 1778 - Mary Hays McCauley (Molly Pitcher) at Battle of Monmouth, NJ
  • 1783 - Dickinson College chartered
  • 1787 - Anti-Constitutional Riots at Carlisle
  • 1794 - President Washington mustered troops in Carlisle during Whiskey Rebellion
  • 1809 - James Buchanan graduates from Dickinson College
  • 1820 - Cumberland County is largest iron producer in PA
  • 1834 - Dickinson Law School established
  • 1836 - Carlisle High School: first public high school in PA
  • 1837 - Cumberland Valley Rail Road completed
  • 1845 - Court House and Town Hall in Carlisle destroyed by fire
  • 1847 - McClintock slave riot in Carlisle
  • 1848 - Daniel Kaufman Underground Railroad trial
  • 1849 - McCormick's reaper tested by Frederick Watts
  • 1855 - First county street illumination in Carlisle
  • 1857 - Irving Female College in Mechanicsburg chartered
  • 1863 - Confederate invasion of Cumberland County
  • 1874 - Cumberland County Historical Society chartered
  • 1874 - Grangers' picnics begin at Williams Grove Park
  • 1879 - Carlisle Indian Industrial School opens
  • 1880 - Daniel Drawbaugh applies for telephone patent
  • 1882 - First telephone service in county
  • 1894 - First trolley companies organized
  • 1901 - Mother Katherine Drexel establishes school and convent
  • 1905 - Last public hanging
  • 1909 - Messiah College founded as Bible School
  • 1912 - Jim Thorpe and Louis Tewanima, Carlisle Indian School students, win Olympic medals
  • 1915 - Marianne Moore publishes first poem
  • 1918 - Flu epidemic ravages Cumberland County
  • 1918 - Carlisle Indian Industrial School closes
  • 1920 - First State Police School in US at Newville
  • 1931 - First CCC Camp in PA at Pine Grove
  • 1934 - Three Babes in the Woods murder case
  • 1940 - PA Turnpike opens, Carlisle to Pittsburgh
  • 1943 - POW interrogation center established at Pine Grove
  • 1957 - Last public one-room school in the county closes
  • 1962 - New Courthouse dedicated
  • 1963 - Holy Spirit Hospital founded
  • 1993 - Randall Shughart awarded Medal of Honor