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SOME HISTORICAL NOTES
By
Doctor Milton E. Flower

The first settlers to cross the Susquehanna River to enter this valley arrived about 1725. These intrepid Scotch Irish pioneers first settled along the Conodoguinet Creek and then along the Yellow Breeches. Only a quarter of a century later enough settlers populated the area west of the river to erect a county which the proprietors called Cumberland. A year afterwards, in 1751, Carlisle was laid out as the county seat.

Almost at once Carlisle had a for located within its environs. The Indians to the west were restive and encouraged to the war path by the French who hoped to stop English advances. Indeed, in 1753 a famous Indian conference was held in Carlisle with Benjamin Franklin as one of the Governor's negotiators. But this temporary treaty was unsuccessful. In the next few years Carlisle became a place of refuge for settlers whose homes had been burned and pillaged and members of whose families had been killed by Indian raiders.

The Quakers, safe in Philadelphia, ignored many pleas for defense. General Braddock's defeat at Fort Duquesne in 1755 was a signal for new uprisings. In 1756 Colonel John Armstrong of Carlisle led an expedition against the Indian stronghold at Kittaning. This engagement was successful and a country later established there bears Armstrong's name. Indian raids continued however. Carlisle became the major rendezvous for men and a storehouse of supplies. Warehouses were built to hold provisions for three months for 6,000 men. On May 30, 1757 Colonel John Stanwix arrived in Carlisle with a part of a battalion of Royal Americans, a thousand Pennsylvania troops, three hundred Marylanders and six hundred Virginians. Here he built entrenchments which marked the fist strictly military camp at Carlisle, the foundations of which were to become Carlisle Barracks. Subsequently still more troops arrived to gather force and provisions before marching west, including Colonel Forbes with recruits and regulars, Highland Scots and the "Kingly Regiment of Royal Americans". Each year 



brought its alarums. Carlisle was consequently often the scene of panic and fright. In 1763, Pontiac's uprising near Detroit was fiere enough to send terror as far east as Carlisle. Finally by the close of 1764 peace descended on the valley and Indian dangers were averted.

Recollection of all too scanty aid during the Indian wars, restrictions on many types of production, stamp taxes, and disdain if not hatred for the Colonial establishment in Philadelphia which gave these interior regions little voice in government, made Carlisle and Cumberland County sympathetic to the cause of the revolution. In July 1774 at a meeting in the first Presbyterian Church resolutions to aid Boston whose port had been closed were passed and arrangements were made to sent representatives to send representatives to a Provincial Assembly.

The ardor of this region's people to demand rights even by force of arms is indicated by the fact that the First Regiment of Pennsylvania Riflemen, commanded by General William Thompson who lived four miles from Carlisle, which included two local companies of men, was the first to reach Washington in Cambridge from west of the Hudson. Officers and men, from the "Five Fighting Butler Brothers" to a disproportionately high number of general officers, and the bravery of Molly McCauley better known as "Molly Pitcher" became legendary. Moreover, it was James Wilson whom Carlisle sent first to the Provincial Congress in 1774 and then to the Continental Congresses, who later became the chief framer of our Constitution. During the Revolution, the fortifications and camp once begun by Colonel Stanwix was established as a center for artificers and known as Washingtonburg, the first place called for the Commander-in-chief.

Carlisle and Cumberland County's place in time of national trial is well known. Washington with cabinet officers met troops and Western Commissioners here for a period of six days at a time of the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794. Both in 1812 and 1848 men heard the call to military service and responded readily.

In the meantime during decades of peace the town grew and prospered. It was an important depot for merchants who provisioned settlers and wagons heading south and westward. A college, incorporated by the State Legislature in 1783, had been established. When the Common School Law was passed in 1834 Carlisle