Perry County
Bloomfield, Perry County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Formed March 22, 1820 from Cumberland County. Named for Oliver Hazard Perry, War of 1812 hero. Birthplace of two governors of Pennsylvania, one of California, and one of Minnesota. The county seat, Bloomfield (P.O., New Bloomfield) was incorporated 1831.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Perry County was set off from Cumberland County in 1820 and named in honor of Oliver Hazard Perry, the naval hero whose victory on Lake Erie became one of the proudest moments of the War of 1812. This rural county along the Juniata proved a fertile ground for public men, sending sons on to serve as governors of Pennsylvania and of three other states. Its seat, Bloomfield, was incorporated in 1831.
Why it matters
Its very name enshrines the naval triumph that helped secure the young republic in the War of 1812, while its record of governors shows how frontier counties seeded national leadership.
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Related people
- · Oliver Hazard Perry
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Civil War Monument
Bloomfield, PA
In the decades after the Civil War, communities across the North raised monuments to their fallen, and rural county seats like Bloomfield gathered their grief and pride into stone in the courthouse-town square. This monument honors the men of Perry County who marched off to save the Union and did not return. Its closing words—that they gave their lives "that the nation might live"—deliberately echo Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, binding a small Pennsylvania county to the war's larger meaning.
Carson Long Military Institute
Bloomfield, PA · est. 1987
This institution began in 1837 as Bloomfield Academy, its first building, "The Maples," completed in 1840. In 1914 Theodore K. Long acquired the school and, after his son William Carson Long died, renamed it in his memory. It has operated as a military school since 1919—the oldest such school in Pennsylvania.
Newport Fugitive Slave Rescue
Newport, PA · est. 2015
In July 1841, three enslaved men from Maryland—Alick, Tom, and Ben—fled north and were tracked to Newport by bounty hunters. Ben drowned trying to cross the Juniata River, and the other two were seized, but several Newport residents helped them get away. Six of those citizens were convicted in federal court in 1842 for aiding the escape.
John Bannister Gibson - PLAQUE
Spring Township, PA · est. 1929
John Bannister Gibson was born on this Perry County ground in November 1780, the son of Col. George Gibson and Anna West Gibson. He rose to become Chief Justice of Pennsylvania from 1827 to 1851, one of the most influential American jurists of his generation, whose opinions shaped the young state's law. The marker honors a legal mind the inscription calls unequaled in its fame.