Pennsylvania State...
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Pennsylvania Counties
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Franklin County, Pennsylvania
Franklin County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education
County Seat: Chambersburg
Year Organized: 1784
Square Miles: 772 |
Court House: 157 Lincoln Way East
County Courthouse
Chambersburg, PA 17201-2233
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Etymology - Origin of County Name
named for Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin Chambers, for whom it was
named, founded Chambersburg, the county seat, in 1764.
Demographics:
County QuickFacts:
Census Bureau Quick Facts
History
Created on September 9, 1784 from
part of Cumberland County and named for Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin Chambers,
for whom it was named, founded Chambersburg, the county seat, in 1764. It was
incorporated as a borough on March 21, 1803.
Benjamin Chambers's settlement in 1730 was the first permanent settler
community. The lower Cumberland Valley was included in a purchase from the
Indians in October 1736, but this was the scene of heavy Indian fighting in the
period 1756 to 1763. From 1837 on, the Cumberland Valley Railroad gave the
county marketing opportunities. Franklin has always had an agricultural base,
but its early iron furnaces lost out to competition elsewhere. Paper, lumber,
and crushed stone, however, were successfully produced. The Confederate Army
twice captured Chambersburg, and the second time, in July 1864, they burned it.
In 1920, Franklin was the state's seventh ranked agricultural producer, and in
1992 it was fourth in receipts from livestock and tenth in crops. Dairying is
especially successful. Farms cover 51.6 percent of the land.
Neighboring Counties:
Cities and Towns:
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- Antrim |
township |
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- Chambersburg
(County
Seat) |
borough |
Incorporated Area |
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- Charlestown |
township |
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- Concord |
township |
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- Fannett |
township |
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- Greencastle |
borough |
Incorporated Area |
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- Greene |
township |
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- Guilford |
township |
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- Letterkenny |
township |
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- Lurgan |
township |
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- Marion |
township |
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- Mercersburg |
borough |
Incorporated Area |
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- Metal |
township |
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- Mont Alto |
borough |
Incorporated Area |
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- Orrstown |
borough |
Incorporated Area |
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- Peters |
township |
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- Quincy |
township |
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- St. Thomas |
township |
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- Waynesboro |
borough |
Incorporated Area |
County Resources:
Enter County Resources and Information Here
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County Resource Guide
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The history of our nation can be seen as a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names we've given our counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic
features of our country!"
But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.
Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally,
act locally." |
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Penn Foster High School
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