Sunbury

Sunbury, a borough and the county seat of Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the Susquehanna river about 53 m. by rail N. by E. of Harrisburg. Pop. (1900), 9810, of whom 197 were foreign-born; (1910 U.S. census) 13,770. It is served by the Pennsylvania, the Northern Central (controlled by the Pennsylvania) and the Philadelphia & Reading railways. Sunbury's principal industry is the manufacture of silk; the Pennsylvania railway has repair shops here. The total value of the borough's factory products increased from $1,868,157 in 1900 to $2,592,829 in 1905, or 38.8%. The borough stands on the site of the old Indian village, Shamokin, which was occupied by Delawares, Senecas and Tutelos, and was long the most prominent Indian village in the province; in1747-1755there was a Moravian mission here. Owing to the strategic importance of the place the provincial government erected Fort Augusta here in 1756; during the War of Independence many of the fugitives from the Wyoming Massacre came to this fort. Sunbury was first surveyed in 1772 and was incorporated as a borough in 1797.