Shippensburg - PLAQUE
Shippensburg, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Settled about 1733. Laid out and named for Edward Shippen, 1703-1781, merchant, mayor and justice of Philadelphia, later a resident of Lancaster, paymaster in the Forbes Expedition, a founder and trustee of Princeton University. Grandson of Edward Shippen (1639-1712) who was the host of William Penn, mayor and merchant of Philadelphia, speaker of the assembly, president of the provincial council and chief justice of Pennsylvania.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Settled about 1733, this Cumberland Valley town was laid out and named for Edward Shippen, a Philadelphia merchant and mayor who later served as a paymaster in the Forbes Expedition against Fort Duquesne and helped found what became Princeton University. He came from a prominent colonial family; his grandfather of the same name had hosted William Penn and risen to chief justice of Pennsylvania. The town grew as a frontier gateway into the valley beyond.
Why it matters
Shippensburg's founding traces the westward push of settlement into Pennsylvania's frontier and the far-reaching influence of the merchant families who shaped the young colony.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When settlers first laid out Shippensburg around 1733, they were standing at the edge of the known colonial world. Behind them, to the east, lay the settled counties of Pennsylvania; ahead lay the long trough of the Cumberland Valley and the mountains beyond, the frontier of Penn's colony.
Towns like this one were gateways. Sited where travelers and settlers passed on their way west, they grew into stopping points, market crossroads, and staging grounds for whatever lay farther into the interior. To be founded here in the 1730s was to be planted on the leading edge of settlement.
Within a generation, that frontier position would make the town strategically important. When Britain and France fought for control of the continent in the mid-eighteenth century, the roads pushing west through valleys like this one became the arteries of war — and a town at the valley's mouth found itself on the path of armies.
People & events
The town carries the name of Edward Shippen, born in 1703, a Philadelphia merchant who rose to be mayor and justice of the city before later making his home in Lancaster. He was a man of the colonial establishment, and his career reads like a map of eighteenth-century Pennsylvania's ambitions.
Two threads of his life stand out. He served as paymaster in the Forbes Expedition — the British campaign of the 1750s that pushed west against the French stronghold of Fort Duquesne, at the forks of the Ohio where Pittsburgh now stands. And he was among the founders and trustees of the college at Princeton, tying his name to the education of the colonies as well as their commerce and defense.
His family had been prominent for generations. The marker traces him back to his grandfather, an earlier Edward Shippen (1639–1712), who had hosted William Penn himself and climbed to the summit of colonial office — mayor and merchant of Philadelphia, speaker of the assembly, president of the provincial council, and chief justice of Pennsylvania. To name a frontier town for such a family was to link the raw edge of settlement to the oldest seats of colonial power.
Its place in the American story
Shippensburg's founding sits at the meeting point of two great American themes: the westward push of settlement and the reach of the families who directed the colonies from the coast. A town on the frontier, named for a Philadelphia dynasty, captures both at once.
The Forbes Expedition that Edward Shippen helped supply was a turning point in the struggle for the continent. Its success opened the Ohio country to British and, soon, American expansion — the beginning of a movement that would carry settlers across the Appalachians in the decades after independence. Frontier towns in the Cumberland Valley were the springboards for that westward surge.
The family's other legacies point the same direction: commerce, government, and education knitting a scattered set of colonies into something that could act, and eventually a nation that could grow. This modest valley town is a thread in that larger weave — proof of how the ambitions formed in Philadelphia's counting houses and council chambers reached all the way to the edge of the map.
If you visit
Shippensburg still sits where the Cumberland Valley opens westward, and the best way to feel its history is to notice its geography. You are at a threshold — the settled country behind you, the long valley and its mountains ahead. That in-between quality is what made the town matter.
As one of the older towns in the valley, it wears its age in its streets and its long main thoroughfare, the kind of settlement that grew up around travelers passing through. Let the marker set your imagination: picture this as a frontier outpost in the 1730s, and later as a place where an army bound for the far forks of the Ohio would have found supplies and shelter.
It makes a natural stop on any drive through the Cumberland Valley, where a chain of historic towns follows the old westward routes. Read the plaque, then look down the road toward the mountains — the same direction the settlers, and the soldiers, were headed.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Plan your visit
NearbyMake a day of it — museums, food, and places to stay near this marker.
Museums & culture
- Appalachian Trail Museum11.3 mi away
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Related people
- · Edward Shippen
- · William Penn
Related events
- · Forbes Expedition
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Old Court House
Shippensburg, PA · est. 1947
Before Carlisle was chosen as the county seat, justice in the Cumberland frontier was dispensed at 'Widow Piper's Tavern' in Shippensburg, which hosted the county's court sessions in 1750 and 1751. Taverns often doubled as the civic centers of early settlements, serving as courtroom, meeting hall, and lodging all at once. The building endures today as the home of the Shippensburg Civic Club.
One-Room Schoolhouse
Shippensburg Township, PA · est. 1970
The Mount Jackson, or Potato Point, School was first built in 1865 as one of the countless one-room schoolhouses where a single teacher taught children of every age. Faithfully reconstructed and moved to this site in 1969 by alumni and friends of Shippensburg State College, it preserves a vanishing form of American schooling. Such schools were the backbone of rural education for generations.
Shippensburg
Shippensburg Township, PA · est. 1948
Edward Shippen laid out Shippensburg in 1730, planting one of the earliest English towns west of the Susquehanna River on what was then the raw edge of colonial Pennsylvania. As settlement pushed inland, the town became an important stopping point on the frontier and briefly served as the seat of newly formed Cumberland County, hosting its first courts in 1750-51 before the seat moved on. Second only to Carlisle in age among towns in the region, it anchored the advance of settlers into the Cumberland Valley.
Shippensburg
Southampton Township, PA · est. 1948
Founded in 1730 by Edward Shippen, this settlement became one of the earliest towns on Pennsylvania's colonial frontier and the second oldest west of the Susquehanna River. Its importance was such that when Cumberland County was organized, its first courts convened here in 1750-51 before a permanent seat was chosen. For early travelers and traders, Shippensburg was a vital waypoint on the edge of European settlement.