HISTORY: Warner Beers, 1886, Part 2, Chapter 15, Cumberland County, PA

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History of Cumberland and Adams Counties, Pennsylvania.
Containing History of the Counties, Their Townships, Towns, Villages, 
Schools, Churches, Industries, Etc.; Portraits of Early Settlers and 
Prominent Men; Biographies; History of Pennsylvania; Statistical and 
Miscellaneous Matter, Etc., Etc.  Illustrated.  Chicago: Warner, Beers 
& Co., 1886.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cumberland/beers/beers.htm
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                                PART II.

             HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY. PENNSYLVANIA.

                               CHAPTER XV.

                       THE FORMATION OF TOWNSHIPS.

  THE Cumberland (then known as the North) Valley was first divided 
into the townships of Pennsborough and Hopewell.  This was in 1735, 
years before the formation of the county, which was then a portion of 
Lancaster.  At this time the Indian title to the lands had not yet been 
extinguished, for it was in October of the following year that the 
Penns finally purchased their title.  White settlers, by permission of 
the Indians, had come into the valley about the year 1730, but they 
were few in number, and Cumberland County was not formed until fifteen 
years after the formation of these two townships.
  The First Proprietary Manor. - A small portion in the lower part of 
the North Valley, and which was afterward a portion of Pennsborough 
Township, was surveyed at a still earlier period (1732) into a 
"Proprietary Manor on Conodoguinette," the more effectually to keep off 
white settlers as opposed to the rights of the Indians, which had not 
yet been satisfactorily purchased.  This manor was also called 
"Pastang" or "Paxton Manor," and after the formation of Cumberland 
County "Louther Manor," in compliment to a nobleman of that name who 
had married a sister of William Penn.
  About sixty families of the Shawanese Indians, who had come from the 
south, settled there about 1698, by permission of the Susquehanna 
Indians, to which the first proprietory, William Penn, afterward 
agreed.  In 1753, complaint is made "that they had not been paid for 
the lands, part of which had been surveyed into the Proprietory Manor 
on Conodoguinette."
  This manor embraced all of what is now East Pennsborough, Lower 
Allen, and a corner of Hampden Townships.  In other words, it was 
bounded on the east by the Susquehanna River, opposite John Harris' 
ferry, and included all the land lying between the Conodoguinet and 
Yellow Breeches Creeks, past the Stone Church or Frieden's Kirche, and 
immediately below Shiremanstown.  It was surveyed by John Armstrong in 
1765, and by John Lukens, Esq., surveyor-general under the Provincial 
Government, in 1767, at which time it was reported to contain 7,551 
acres.
  The two original townships, we have seen, were Pennsborough and 
Hopewell.  Pennsborough, which lay on the east, at its formation 
included the whole of the territory which is now embraced in Cumberland 
County.  Hopewell, which lay on the west, included most of the land 
which is now embraced in Franklin.  Six years later (1741) the township 
of Hopewell was divided, and the western division was called Antrim, 
after the county in Ireland.  This territory afterward became a portion 
or nearly the whole of what is now included in Franklin County.
  Soon after the formation of Pennsborough Township, portions of it 
began to be called North and South, East and West Pennsborough, and in 
1745, ten 

229  HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY.

years after its formation, and five years before the formation of the 
county, it seems to have been definitely divided into East and West 
Pennsborough.  In the years which have elapsed many townships have been 
formed, so that now one portion of this original township lies west of 
the center, and the other at the northeastern extremity of the county, 
separated by the many intervening townships which have been formed from 
them.
  One other township, Middleton, also originally part of Pennsborough, 
was just before or coincident in its birth with the formation of 
Cumberland County, so that when the county was formed, its map, 
including only that portion of it which was known by the name of "North 
Valley," would have embraced East and West Pennsborough, Hopewell, 
Antrim and Middleton Townships.  That is the map of this portion of 
Cumberland County at its formation in 1750.
  The date of the formation of the succeeding townships is as follows:  
Allen, 1766; Newton, 1767; Southampton, 1783; Shippensburg, 1784; 
Dickinson, 1785; Silvers' Spring, 1787; Frankford, 1795; Mifflin, 1797; 
North and South Middleton, 1810; Monroe, 1825; Newville, 1828; Hampden, 
1845; Upper and Lower Allen, 1849; Middlesex, 1859; Penn, 1859; Cook, 
1872.
  The organization of boroughs was as follows:  Carlisle, 1782; 
Newville, 1817; Shippensburg, 1819; Mechanicsburg, 1828; New 
Cumberland, 1831; Newburg, 1861; Mount Holly springs, 1873; 
Shiremanstown, 1874; Camp Hill, 1885.