New Cumberland History
By Dr. Gerald S. Brinton
New Cumberland Borough lies at the confluence of the Yellow Breeches Creek and the Susquehanna River. Over the years, the town has had many names: Shawneetown (so named in 1689 for the original inhabitants, native American Susquehannock Indians of the Shawnee Tribe), Chartiers Landing (named for Peter Chartier who opened a trading post on the west bank of the Susquehanna River in 1725), Lowther Manor (named Manor of Lowther by members of the William Penn family in 1750 in honor of Thomas Penn’s Aunt Margaret who was married to Sir Anthony Lowther of Cumberland County England), Haldeman’s Town (after Jacob Haldeman in 1814, owner of Cumberland Forge, a local iron furnace), and Cumberland (recorded at the County after the Cumberland Forge).
In 1827, the United States Post Office changed the official designation to New Cumberland to avoid confusion with Cumberland, Maryland. New Cumberland was incorporated as a Borough in 1831.
The shelving shore line of the river and the nearby creek provided a useful harbor for landing lumber rafts. This led to the location of saw mills in the new town. Although it grew slowly in the first decade, the construction of a grain mill and depot made the town a shipping point for grain, iron, and other products destined for Baltimore and Philadelphia.
By 1845, the town numbered forty dwellings, four stores, two churches, one tavern, two saw mills, a pump factory, a flour mill, and more than three hundred residents. A turnpike enlivened the place; teamsters sometimes enlivened it too much for the local constable. Charles Dickens, traveling on a mail coach through town, enjoyed the river scenery but left no Dickensian description of New Cumberland. The lumber business boomed. A harbor master supervised river bank traffic. Ultimately, seven firms engaged in the lumbering trade but after the Civil War this dwindled. The opening of the York and Cumberland Railroad in 1851 ended the era of freight wagons and coaches.
The most prominent New Cumberland resident was John White Geary, governor of Pennsylvania 1867 – 1873. He was a colorful and adventurous soldier-politician. Major Marcus Reno, a controversial figure in the Custer Massacre, owned a farm which is now part of the Borough. Both men are remembered by avenues named for them, and by Geary’s home site on Market Square.
In the late 19th century new enterprises replaced the lumber trade. A woolen mill, carding mill, nail and carpet factories, and additional retail stores provided work. Some men crossed the river by rowboat or ferry to work in mills at Steelton. People endured periodic floods and fires. The Borough Council busied itself with such matters as providing a farmers market, repairing the turnpike, regulating burials in the town cemetery, offering bounties for Civil War volunteers, changing from gas to electric street lights, and coping with crimes from chicken stealing to housebreaking. Politically, the town became a republican stronghold.
A photograph taken in January 1900, revealed a town extending north six blocks from the Yellow Breeches Creek and two blocks west from the river. It lay within the boundaries laid out by Haldeman eight-four years before. Gilbert Beckley, a local historian, wrote that the 20th century arrived like an express train. Schools, churches, electricity, movie theater, trolley cars, buses, and automobiles reflected the change to a suburban community sharing its future with other new boroughs on the West Shore. With the century came increased services provided by the borough government: improved police and fire protection, paved streets, and a sewage system. Incorporation of adjacent parts of Lower Allen Township between 1905 and 1954 increased the area of the borough from its original seventy to 1,033 acres. The largest population growth occurred in the 1920’s and 1950’s. At the end of the century it is about 8,000.
The entrepreneurial spirit did not die with earlier generations. The first bank opened in 1904 followed by a tobacco factory in 1906. In 1910 investors from Corning, New York and New Cumberland established a Wright Motor Car Company in New Cumberland. Like some other pioneers, they failed. World War I added another large employer nearby at the army depot. Among the biggest successes were the New Cumberland Box Company and Berg Electronics. As decades passed retail stores and services replaced factories.
Many new residents helped create religious, educational, and recreational facilities to meet their needs. Baughman Methodist and Trinity United Brethren Churches were joined by the Church of God. St. Paul’s Lutheran, Community United Brethren, St. Theresa Catholic, Church of the Nazarene, and Faith United Church of Christ.
Until 1855, one-room schools served the community. In that year, the Green Hill School was built at Fifth and Bridge Streets. This building and its successor on the same site and other buildings annexed by the Borough sufficed until 1929 when a new high school opened. Following World War II, the baby boomers required more schools. The merger of eight districts, including New Cumberland, resulted in the West Shore School District seven years later.
As New Cumberland towns people anticipate a new century, they also look back to the accomplishments and losses of the passing one. Still remembered are the men who lost their lives in the wars of the century. Fresh in their memory is Police Patrolman, Willis J. Cole, who was killed in the line of duty in 1994.
Many volunteer organizations contributed to the well-being of the town: the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars posts, Chartier, Lions, Kiwanis, River Rescue, Senior Citizens Center, and Olde Towne Association. The Civic Club began in the 1930’s what the Bicentennial Committee completed in 1976, a Borough library on property donated by Mr. and Mrs. Roland Benjamin. Friends of the Library and the Library Foundation lent support to it. The Woman’s Club purchased and gave to the Borough a creek side park where once the iron forge and mills stood. The present town band, fifty years old in 1996, brightens the Fourth of July and the annual Apple Festival. New Cumberland is part of West Shore suburbia but it still has attributes of a small town. Long time resident, DeLance Lenhart, wrote in 1929, The town has a personality it’s a living thing like a human being. May it so continue.
*For further information on the history of our town, refer to New Cumberland Frontier, copyright 1973, and The Sampler of Seventy-Six, copyright 1975. Both Gilbert W. Beckley publications are available at the New Cumberland Public Library.
New Cumberland Borough lies at the confluence of the Yellow Breeches Creek and the Susquehanna River. Over the years, the town has had many names: Shawneetown (so named in 1689 for the original inhabitants, native American Susquehannock Indians of the Shawnee Tribe), Chartiers Landing (named for Peter Chartier who opened a trading post on the west bank of the Susquehanna River in 1725), Lowther Manor (named Manor of Lowther by members of the William Penn family in 1750 in honor of Thomas Penn’s Aunt Margaret who was married to Sir Anthony Lowther of Cumberland County England), Haldeman’s Town (after Jacob Haldeman in 1814, owner of Cumberland Forge, a local iron furnace), and Cumberland (recorded at the County after the Cumberland Forge).
In 1827, the United States Post Office changed the official designation to New Cumberland to avoid confusion with Cumberland, Maryland. New Cumberland was incorporated as a Borough in 1831.
The shelving shore line of the river and the nearby creek provided a useful harbor for landing lumber rafts. This led to the location of saw mills in the new town. Although it grew slowly in the first decade, the construction of a grain mill and depot made the town a shipping point for grain, iron, and other products destined for Baltimore and Philadelphia.
By 1845, the town numbered forty dwellings, four stores, two churches, one tavern, two saw mills, a pump factory, a flour mill, and more than three hundred residents. A turnpike enlivened the place; teamsters sometimes enlivened it too much for the local constable. Charles Dickens, traveling on a mail coach through town, enjoyed the river scenery but left no Dickensian description of New Cumberland. The lumber business boomed. A harbor master supervised river bank traffic. Ultimately, seven firms engaged in the lumbering trade but after the Civil War this dwindled. The opening of the York and Cumberland Railroad in 1851 ended the era of freight wagons and coaches.
The most prominent New Cumberland resident was John White Geary, governor of Pennsylvania 1867 – 1873. He was a colorful and adventurous soldier-politician. Major Marcus Reno, a controversial figure in the Custer Massacre, owned a farm which is now part of the Borough. Both men are remembered by avenues named for them, and by Geary’s home site on Market Square.
In the late 19th century new enterprises replaced the lumber trade. A woolen mill, carding mill, nail and carpet factories, and additional retail stores provided work. Some men crossed the river by rowboat or ferry to work in mills at Steelton. People endured periodic floods and fires. The Borough Council busied itself with such matters as providing a farmers market, repairing the turnpike, regulating burials in the town cemetery, offering bounties for Civil War volunteers, changing from gas to electric street lights, and coping with crimes from chicken stealing to housebreaking. Politically, the town became a republican stronghold.
A photograph taken in January 1900, revealed a town extending north six blocks from the Yellow Breeches Creek and two blocks west from the river. It lay within the boundaries laid out by Haldeman eight-four years before. Gilbert Beckley, a local historian, wrote that the 20th century arrived like an express train. Schools, churches, electricity, movie theater, trolley cars, buses, and automobiles reflected the change to a suburban community sharing its future with other new boroughs on the West Shore. With the century came increased services provided by the borough government: improved police and fire protection, paved streets, and a sewage system. Incorporation of adjacent parts of Lower Allen Township between 1905 and 1954 increased the area of the borough from its original seventy to 1,033 acres. The largest population growth occurred in the 1920’s and 1950’s. At the end of the century it is about 8,000.
The entrepreneurial spirit did not die with earlier generations. The first bank opened in 1904 followed by a tobacco factory in 1906. In 1910 investors from Corning, New York and New Cumberland established a Wright Motor Car Company in New Cumberland. Like some other pioneers, they failed. World War I added another large employer nearby at the army depot. Among the biggest successes were the New Cumberland Box Company and Berg Electronics. As decades passed retail stores and services replaced factories.
Many new residents helped create religious, educational, and recreational facilities to meet their needs. Baughman Methodist and Trinity United Brethren Churches were joined by the Church of God. St. Paul’s Lutheran, Community United Brethren, St. Theresa Catholic, Church of the Nazarene, and Faith United Church of Christ.
Until 1855, one-room schools served the community. In that year, the Green Hill School was built at Fifth and Bridge Streets. This building and its successor on the same site and other buildings annexed by the Borough sufficed until 1929 when a new high school opened. Following World War II, the baby boomers required more schools. The merger of eight districts, including New Cumberland, resulted in the West Shore School District seven years later.
As New Cumberland towns people anticipate a new century, they also look back to the accomplishments and losses of the passing one. Still remembered are the men who lost their lives in the wars of the century. Fresh in their memory is Police Patrolman, Willis J. Cole, who was killed in the line of duty in 1994.
Many volunteer organizations contributed to the well-being of the town: the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars posts, Chartier, Lions, Kiwanis, River Rescue, Senior Citizens Center, and Olde Towne Association. The Civic Club began in the 1930’s what the Bicentennial Committee completed in 1976, a Borough library on property donated by Mr. and Mrs. Roland Benjamin. Friends of the Library and the Library Foundation lent support to it. The Woman’s Club purchased and gave to the Borough a creek side park where once the iron forge and mills stood. The present town band, fifty years old in 1996, brightens the Fourth of July and the annual Apple Festival. New Cumberland is part of West Shore suburbia but it still has attributes of a small town. Long time resident, DeLance Lenhart, wrote in 1929, The town has a personality it’s a living thing like a human being. May it so continue.
*For further information on the history of our town, refer to New Cumberland Frontier, copyright 1973, and The Sampler of Seventy-Six, copyright 1975. Both Gilbert W. Beckley publications are available at the New Cumberland Public Library.