Image: Dam on Mountain Creek by Jim Bradley

The Elizabeth V. and George F. Gardner Digital Library Logo

An initiative of the Cumberland County Historical Society the Elizabeth V. and George F. Gardner Digital Library seeks to fulfill the Society's mission of collecting, engaging, and sharing the stories of Cumberland County.

Highlighted Stories

Barbara Redmond

Interview of Barbara Redmond for the Elizabeth V. and George F. Gardner Digital Library an initiative of the Cumberland County Historical Society. Redman discusses how she moved to Mount Holly Springs, PA and the make up of the neighborhood of Mountain Street and Cedar Avenue in Mount Holly.

Shirley I. Heishman

Interview of Shirley Heishman for the Elizabeth V. and George F. Gardner Digital Library. Heishman discusses her life growing up in Bloserville outside of Newville, Pennsylvania including her experiences working on her parents farm to meeting her husband Don Heishman and their many business ventures from hauling milk, water, and whey to building the Heishman Softball Complex.

Highlighted Entries

Mrs. Sarah A. Faber: From Carlisle to Constantinople

Print shows a bird's-eye view of many pedestrians and a horse-drawn carriage on the Galata Bridge, which spans the Golden Horn at Eminönü, Istanbul, Turkey, with minarets and mosques visible in the background

When Sarah Filey was growing up in rural Cumberland County in the 1830s and 1840s, she could not have imagined that ten years of her life would be spent more than 5,000 miles away in Constantinople, Turkey.

Isabella Oliver

Photo of the cover page from Oliver's Poems

Isabella Oliver, (July 16, 1771—June 7, 1843), once known as the “poetess of the Conodoguinet,” or more colorfully as that creek’s “muse,” was the second--and the first female--published Cumberland County poet in 1805 with Poems on Various Subjects, following the unknown writer of The Unequal Conflict in 1792.

Carlisle the “Athens of Pennsylvania,” or Not

Divided back;  B & W sketch of the Carlisle Square as of 1843

In 1844, a Mr. Richards of Reading, Berks County Pennsylvania, having heard from some residents of Reading that Carlisle was called the “Athens of Pennsylvania,” he decided to visit it and see for himself. When he returned to Reading his impressions of Carlisle were published in the April 17, 1844, edition of the “Reading Journal.” The “Carlisle Weekly Herald” published it for “the curiosity of its readers” in the April 24, 1844, edition of the newspaper.