Carlisle

Carlisle, a borough and the county-seat of Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., 18 m. W. by S. of Harrisburg and 118 m. W. by N. of Philadelphia. Pop. (1890) 7620; (1900) 9626 (1148 being negroes); (1910) 10,303. It is served by the Cumberland Valley (controlled by the Pennsylvania railway) and the Gettysburg & Harrisburg railways. The borough is pleasantly situated in the central part of the fertile Cumberland Valley, which is here 12 m. wide. Mount Holly Springs and Boiling Springs are near, and are important summer attractions. In Carlisle is Dickinson College, founded in 1783 by Presbyterians, and named in honour of John Dickinson (q.v.), a benefactor of the college; it was reorganized in 1833 as a Methodist Episcopal College, and is now divided into the college, the school of law (founded in 1834) and Conway Hall, the preparatory department. President James Buchanan and Chief Justice R.B. Taney were graduates. Here are also Metzger College for young ladies, and a well-known United States Indian industrial school, established in 1879 through the efforts of Lieutenant (later Brigadier-General) Richard Henry Pratt (b. 1840), its superintendent until 1904; the school pays especial attention to industrial and agricultural training, and its athletic organizations are famous. A great effort is made to preserve and develop Indian arts and crafts; the instruction given by Mrs Angel Decora Dietz, a Winnebago, in colour work and design, decorating leather, making beadwork and weaving rugs, is particularly noteworthy. On the initiative of the pupils the Leupp Indian Art School was built on the campus in 1906-1907, all materials being purchased with the funds of the athletic association and all work being done by the students. The building is named in honour of Francis Ellington Leupp (b. 1849), U.S. commissioner of Indian affairs in 1905. Carlisle is prominent for the manufacture of boots and shoes, and has machine shops and manufactories of carriages, ribbons, railway frogs and switches, carpets and paper boxes. In 1905 the value of all the factory products was $1,985,743, of which $1,078,401 was the value of boots and shoes. The place was laid out as a town in 1751, was named from Carlisle, Cumberland, England, and was incorporated as a borough in 1872. In 1753 Benjamin Franklin, with two other commissioners, negotiated a treaty with the Ohio Indians here. During the War of Independence the Americans kept here for secure confinement a number of British prisoners, among them Major John André, and in 1794 Carlisle was the headquarters of George Washington during the Whisky Rebellion. On the night of the 1st of July 1863 Carlisle was bombarded by Confederate troops.