Hummelstown Borough

Hummelstown Borough Hall is located at 136 South Hanover Street, Hummelstown PA 17036; phone: 717-566-2555.

Beginnings [1]

Founded about 1740 by Frederick Hummel and known as Frederickstown until his death, spent its formative years making firearms; today [1940] it is largely residential and agricultural, drawing a livelihood from the fertile valley and from neighboring Harrisburg, although it has a small dress factory.

Less than a mile outside Hummelstown is "Indian Echo Cave," a 450-foot cavern in a limestone ridge which reveals the usual formations named for objects they resemble. In one section of the cave Amos Wilson, the Pennsylvania Hermit, spent the last 19 years of his life, because he failed, by a few minutes, to save his sister Harriot, from hanging for the murder of her illegitimate baby.

1. Writers Project, Works Project Administration, Pennsylvania, A Guide to the Keystone State, 1940, Federal Works Agency, John M. Carmody, Administrator