Martha C. Slotten, “The McClintock Slave Riot of 1847,” Cumberland County History 17 (2000): 14-35.

While Dickinson College Professor “John McClintock spent twelve long, difficult, though happy years in Carlisle,” Martha C. Slotten notes that for him any “sense of belonging…was quickly dispelled in the riot on the square” in June 1847. Two slaveowners from Hagerstown, Maryland – James Kennedy and Howard Hollingsworth – arrived in Cumberland County and caught three fugitive slaves in Shippensburg.  They brought the fugitives to Carlisle for a hearing early on June 2, 1847. Slotten’s explores the riot and the court cases that followed in her article.

This essay has been posted online with permission from the Cumberland County Historical Society.