Before Camp Hill became a Borough in 1885
Traders, who were migrants not settlers, operated on the west side of the Susquehanna River and were licensed by the courts. They did not bother the Native people’s rights to the land.
1570 – A pear-shaped storage pit filled with parched corn is found on the hillside of North 25th Street in the 1930s. Archeologists date its existence as after 1570 and before 1640,
1608 – Capt. John Smith (1580-1631) sails his three-ton barge into “Sasquesahanough” (Susquehanna) and found Native people with iron hatchets and never went beyond the mouth.
1610 – 20 – Susquehannock village in Lemoyne found in 2007
1616 – Etienne (Stephen) Brule, (1592-1633) an early interpreter and agent between Algonquins and the French, passes through. According to legend, he is the first European to view the land that would become Pennsylvania’s Capital.
1616 – Four Native tribes are part of the early History of Cumberland Valley: Susquehannock, Iroquois, Lenape (Delaware) and Shawnee.
1616 – The Susquehannocks, also known as Minquas and Conestogas, are the first to settle on the west side. They developed the first trading pattern by taking fur pelts to Swedes and Dutch on the Schuylkill River.
1675 – Iroquois made up of the Six Nations Confederacy, conquers all other tribes. No other tribes for 70 years settle on west bank land without Iroquois permission. Other tribes go to Shamokin for permission from Shikellamy, an Oneida chef, who is the Iroquois agent there.
1681 – King Charles II (1630-1685) of England settles debt owed to Sir Admiral William Penn (1621-1670) by giving his North American holdings to his son, William Penn (1644-1718), Proprietor of Pennsylvania on March 4, 1681.
1682 – Pennsylvania divided into three counties: Bucks, Philadelphia, and Chester
1696 – Iroquois sell “all that tract of land on both sides of the River Susquehanna” to New York Gov. Thomas Dongen (1634-1715) (Later the Earl of Limerick) who deeds it to William Penn for 100 pounds sterling.
1698 – The Shawnees settle on the west bank with the permission of the Iroquois.
1700 – Susquehannocks sell the same land to Penn. A year later Penn buy the same land from the Shawnee and Delawares who are the only migratory tribes in the area with Iroquois permission.
1701 – Shawnees on the west side write the government in Philadelphia that the European settlers are to remember a promise “shall not suffer strange nations of Indians to Settle or Plant on the further side of Susquehannah but such that are already settled there.’
1720 – French fur trader James Letort (1675-1742) builds a log cabin near present LeTort Spring run.
1720 – Settlers, mostly Scots Irish, begin moving to the west side of the Susquehanna River, illegally
1722 – King of England forbids settlement on the west side of the Susquehanna River as land was reserved for Shawnees.
1727 – Fur trader Peter Chartier, (1690-c.1759) son of French fur trader and Shawnee woman, and who has a trading post I between 15th and 16th streets in New Cumberland, leads Shawnee to the Ohio area. Delawares also move west.
1727 – First settlers move into Cumberland Valley but not on land reserved for Shawnees. The first known settler west of the Susquehanna River is Andrew Ralston.
1727 – Tobias Hendricks Sr. (1680-1739) a magastrate from Donegal Twp., Lancaster County, builds the first house on West Shore on Simpson Ferry Road near Cedar Run in Lower Allen Township. The house is demolished in 2014 as part of Cedar Run Project
1729 – Lancaster County cut from Chester County
1730 – 12 Scots Irish families arrive in Shippensburg, the first settlement in Cumberland Valley
1731 – Shawnee offered a tract of 7551 acres between Cohomogeneity (Conogodoguient) and Yellow Breeches creeks, Susquehanna River to the East and a line (today’s St. John Church Road) between the two creeks
1732 – Thomas Penn (1702-1775), Penn’s son) visits the area to persuade the Shawnees to return home from “Alleghening” (near Pittsburgh) to settle in the Indian Manor. However, the west side is a barrens “without a tree in a thousand acres”. The Shawnee remained at the forks of the Ohio.
1733 – John Harris Sr. (1673-1748, a businessman, starts his ferry, the first permanent commercial structure in the Manor, across the Susquehanna River. In 1734, owners petitioned to build a shelter on the west side near the Lemoyne bottleneck. The Harris Family sold ferry to William Kelso (1737-1788) around 1770.
1735 – Settlers request road from Harris Ferry to Potomac which becomes the Great Road., today’s Market Street through the borough.
1736 – Penn sons made a fourth purchase of the same land on the west side from the same tribes.
1736 – Lancaster County land west of Susquehanna becomes Pennsborougn Township
1745 – Pennsborough Township is divided at site of present Newville; Camp Hill is in East Pennsborough
1745 – Lancaster County Militia alerted about a pending raid by Peter Chartier who accepts a French commission as a captain in the western frontier
1747 – Delaware chief Sasounan who lived in Shamokin dies, followed the next year by Chief Shikellamy who served as a supervisor for the Six Nations, overseeing the Shawnee and Lenape tribes in central Pennsylvania along the Susquehanna River and protecting the southern border of the Iroquois Confederacy.
1748 – Tobias Hendricks Jr., (1729-1807) named militia officer, to keep settlers out of area set aside for Shawnees.
1750 – Cumberland County becomes sixth County in Pennsylvania (Lancaster)
1751 – Carlisle named Cumberland County seat
1753 – Benjamin Franklin negotiates treaty chiefs of the Six Nations tribes in Carlisle to discuss illegal settlements.
1754 – Tobias Hendricks and others petition Council and Governor for protections while making individual preparations. Hendrick’s tavern becomes Fort Pleasant.
1756 – Two more Councils with Native chiefs discuss issues related to rum traffic and to the French and Indian War
1757 – Bad year happens in Lowther Manor. One man scalped at McMean’s Spring (Sporting Hill), four men killed near Hendrick’s, nineteen men killed near Harris Ferry, and two men never return from searching for their horses, Deaths end when Gen. John Forbes, with Col. George Washington and Col. John Armstrong lead 6,000 men to Fort Duquesne.
1757 – Carlisle Barracks was established , the second oldest military post in the United States.
1758 – Allen Township created in Southern section of East Pennsborough Township
1762 – Thirty years after a treaty was negotiated granting the Shawnees approval for the “Indian Manor”, Penns paid “Consideration of Value” for Shawnee for the land. Penn family changes name from Indian Manor to Manor of Lowther named in honor of uncle, Anthony Lowther, husband of William Penn’s sister, Margaret Penn
1765 – Col. John Armstrong, a veteran “Indian fighter”, resurveys the Manor. John Penn asks him to “divide the Manor into tracts of 200 acres or thereabouts in such manor as you and your said assistants (Tobias Hendricks and James Galbreath) shall judge will best answer.” The Penns ordered a “farm” of 500 acres reserved for themselves and a 1,200- acre plot surveyed for George Croghan, (1718-1782) prominent trader, frontiersman, and Indian agent. and Capt. Henry (Harry) Gordon, an engineer who worked on Fort Pitt. Armstrong does the survey 10 months later.
1767 – John Penn ( 1729-1795), Penn’s grandson, orders a third survey with the lines by John Luken (1720-1789), surveyor general of Pennsylvania. Lukens revised four of the 28 lots in Armstrong survey, finding an error of 78 acres.
1770 – First warrant for a farm issued to Andrew Kreitzer on Aug 9. He paid 630 pounds for the 267-acre lot No. 19, lying between 21street and Country Club Road. Others receiving early lots were Jacob Miller, Philip Kimmel, Casper Wix, Moses Wallace, Jonas Lesley and John Wilson as well as John Armstrong, Robert Whitehill, and James Wilson, (1742-1798),one of two Pennsylvanians to sign Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
1771 – Robert Whitehill (1738-1813) builds the first stone house in Camp Hill at 19th and Market streets, the oldest structure still standing the Manor of Lowther. Whitehill serves in the Pennsylvania General Assembly, the Pennsylvania State Constitutional Convention in July 1776 that approved the Declaration of Independence, State constitutional convention in 1790, 1804 Senate speaker during the impeachment trials of the Supreme Court judges, and three terms in U.S. Congress until his death in 1813. He helped draft the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 and the Minority Dissent[1] to the ratification of the US Constitution by Pennsylvania. This dissent included proposed amendments to the US Constitution that may have been used by James Madison when he drafted the United States Bill of Rights.
1775 – Capt. William Hendricks, son of Tobias Hendricks, leads Cumberland Riflemen on a march to Quebec to invade Canada to obtain French-Canadian support against the British on Dec. 31, 1775. Hendricks was killed in action, Jan. 1, 1776.
1785 – Dauphin County created from Lancaster County
1790 – Penn Family gives up ownership of Pennsylvania
1794 – George Washington came to Carlisle through the West Shore to muster 14,000 militia troops for a march to western Pennsylvania, to quell the Whiskey Rebellion
1796 – John Bowman of Ephrata buys Hendrick’s Tavern. Eventually he replaced the old log house because it was too small for his business. increasing patronage. Iin 1799 he built a large stone house, part of which is standing today in 2300 block of Market St. . The main structure has 21 rooms and had large yards for teams and barns and stables for horses and other stock. Adjacent were two distilleries where grain and apples were turned into liquor and made a merchantable commodity.
1799 – Peace Church, at corner of Trindle and St. John’s Church roads, dedicated by German Reformed Congregation
1806 – Lutheran Congregation buys half interest in Peace Church. congregations hold services on alternate Sundays. Camp Hill residents attend Lutheran and German Reformed services.
1833 – Camp Hill Church of God founded, the first church in the village.
1814 – Abraham Oyster opens a tavern where Trindle Springs Road intersects with the Great Road (Market Street)
1816 – Market Street Bridge (Camelback) dedicated
1834 – New Cumberland Borough formed from eastern Allen Township
1837 – Camp Hill Cemetery opens, . It was originally the Bowman family’s private burying ground on their farm.
1850 – Allen Township split into Upper Allen and Lower Allen townships
1851 – Prof. David Denlinger opens the White Hall Academy at 2100 Market Street. It closed in 1863.
1863 – Battle of Sporting Hill is the northern most engagement of the Gettysburg Campaign. Cannon balls from Peace Church land on Camp Hill Church of God lawn on N. 21st Street. .
1863 – Oyster Point is the farthest advances of Confederate troops in Gettysburg Campaign.
1866 – White Hall School for Civil War Soldiers’ Orphans’ opens in the former White Hall Academy with Prof David Denlinger as principal. It closed in 1890.
1863 – Fort Washington built along Cumberland Road in Lemoyne in mid-June 1863 and occupied by New York State Militia to provide defense of Harrisburg during the Gettysburg campaign. Earth embankments are built by volunteer citizens and African American railroad gangs supplied by the Pennsylvania Railroad on June 14, 1863. Fort Washington occupies about 60 acres on Hummel’s Heights overlooking Harrisburg. The fort was defended by 25 pieces of artillery. Today nothing remains of the fort except indications of earthworks on private property.
1874 – Shireman town Borough formed from Lower Allen Township
1879, The Carlisle Indian Industrial School opens at the Carlisle Barracks to house and educate approximately 11,000 Native Americans until its closure in 1918.
1885 – Camp Hill Borough formed from East Pennsboro Township