FALL HISTORY SERIES
CUMBERLAND COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

 
Monday, September 11th, 2017 – Monday, October 2nd, 2017
6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. in Todd Hall 
Act 48 approved for teachers.  Reservations required.
Costs: $45 per member; $65 per nonmember; $20 per session

The Frontier and its Legacy

            Jeff Wood has presented the Fall Series at the Society since 2000. He is the owner of the Whistlestop Bookshop, is past-President of the Cumberland County Historical Society and past-President of the Bosler Memorial Library. Every year the Fall Series has retold the history of the county from its founding to the present day.

Cumberland County was founded in a violent game of empires.  The Europeans that settled the county learned hard lessons from wars and revolutions, lessons that shaped county history for over a century.  In a series of four presentations from September 11 to October 2, 2017, Jeff Wood will tell the dramatic story of the Cumberland Valley from 1730 to the eve of the Civil War.  Native history, Scots-Irish and German settlement, tensions with colonial government, early national identity, the Whiskey Rebellion, and the legacy of a frontier spirit will all be woven into the story.

1.        Captivity.  Patterns developed in the encounters, clashes, and mergers of the European settlers of Cumberland Valley and the Natives of the region.  Well-known and obscure captivities will be investigated for their stories, meanings, and legacies.

2.       Sideshow.  Major John André of His Majesty’s military in the North American colonies spent some time in the Valley as a prisoner of war in 1776.  His story and the widely varying accounts of his stay here are worth re-telling.

3.       Is Protest Treason?  The early National period in the Valley was contentious and dangerous.  How did the Valley fare in the new nation?  We examine patriotism and liberty after the Revolutionary War.

4.       The People and their Presidents.  Cumberland Valley rode the whirlwind of the US Presidents from Washington to Jackson.  Our relationship to the first seven Presidents is a good biography of the area’s life and times.