Carlisle Chamber of Commerce celebrates 100 years!

   We attended the 100th anniversary celebration of the Greater Carlisle Chamber of Commerce  last evening at the Carlisle Business Airport. Perfect weather with delicious hors d'oeuvres, Surf & Turf dinner and sweet treats from the Carlisle Bakery.   We ended the evening with a great band under the Supermoon!

Civil War 150th - 1863 Invasion in the Cumberland Valley

Civil War 150th 

 1863 Invasion in the Valley 

was remembered at the Cumberland County Historical Society last evening with a presentation by Pvt. Patrick Farrell, portrayed by Carlisle attorney Hubert Gilroy. Patrick told of the Irish families in the

Cumberland Valley and the grand contributions the Irish soldiers made for the cause. He also described his friendship with the Faller family on North Hanover Street and the War skirmishes fought alongside two of the Faller brothers, John and Leo. Mary, portraying great great grandmother, Maria Faller, read a poignant letter that John wrote home from Antietam telling of Leo's death - September 17, 1862.

An illustrated letter by Leo.

The letters are reproduced in a book titled Dear Folks at Home which includes Johns account of imprisonment in Andersonville.

Tea with the Governor

Down here in Williamsburg, VA for the Mid-Atlantic Innkeeping Conference so we popped into the Palace for a quick word with the governor!

Apparently he'd gone out for a cup of tea about 236 years ago... So we went back to the Williamsburg Lodge and Alan had a cup of tea anyway!  Three nights in Williamsburg and we have visited the Trellis Restaurant twice.  Good job we don't actually live here!

Great to be here learning lots of new things to make the Carlisle House even better!

40 Years of great pottery from Deneen

Peter Deneen celebrated 40 years of pottery and his 30th Professional Association of Innkeepers International Conference and Trade Show.  The Deneen family work out of St Paul, Minnesota, and provide us with our much sought-after and highly collectible Carlisle House mugs. To celebrate the anniversaries, Peter was asked by PAII CEO Jay Karen to cut the ribbon to open the show!

Mary and Alan and our staff at the Carlisle House say "Thank you" to Peter Deneen and his family and staff for a great Made In America product that our guests love!

History is personal and all around us

Those of you who have stayed in our Ewing Room or Rose Room, and certainly those of you who have the pleasure of being a Carlisle local, or Carlislian, will know that our B&B used to be the home of the Ewings, and that the twins, Seymour and Bill, grew up in our house.

We are reminded of this, and of them, often during the renovations and maintenance we are constantly performing, and yesterday as we were stripping old wallpaper we came across yet another Ewing Signature on the wall. Now, Seymour has been the most prolific writer, with comments on walls all over the property, but this one is by Bill, or William as he clearly liked to be called in his younger days. I said that Seymour did most of the writing but Bill made up for it with this one - it is almost 3 feet across!

For the first 5 years that we owned the Carlisle House, we often used to see Seymour and Bill drive into our parking lot and circle slowly around looking to see what changes we had made, and of course they were always available for open houses when Seymour would quietly sit in a chair in the Rose Room until he was noticed, then he'd say in a loud voice "It's alright! You can come in, I'm not stuffed!".

The next story about Bill and Seymour needs a little explanation. Our B&B was built in 1826 and has thick rock walls in the basement with enormous floor joists sitting on top of them, with the brick walls outside the joists, and on upward. Imagine, if you will, that between each joist is an open-fronted box with the rock as the bottom, two joists forming the walls, brick at the back, and the floor above is the top. Keep that in mind!

In the basement are the electrical breaker boxes, and we always keep a clear path between the basement steps and the electrical boxes so that we can reset breakers when needed. As we do a lot of maintenance, the path is used often and one day Mary went to the breaker box - maybe an hour or two after I had last been there - and in the middle of the path were scattered what looked at a quick glance like dollar bills. Mary picked them up, and noticed that on the back were typed Seymour and Bill's names. She called me and we stood there mystified as to where they could possibly have come from. As we looked around we shone a flashlight into the "box" described above, and saw an old leather wallet stuffed with play money!

The problem is that the opening of the wallet was facing into the box, toward the bricks. We still don't know how the money got out of the wallet and about 4 feet to the path to the breakers! Maybe it is the twins' way of saying "Don't forget us! We're still going to be here for as long as people remember us!".

We miss the twins, but are so glad to have known them. They truly were a part of Carlisle's history.

In memory!

Honoring Joanna Ye - 3rd Place National Spelling Bee

Honey BEE Lemon Pound Cake
is featured today for breakfast!!

This is Joanna Ye Weekend in Carlisle, PA.

Joanna, 14, tied for third place with 11-year-old Arvind Mahankali of New York City in the Scripps 2011 National Spelling Bee, held in National Harbor, Md. This year’s bee marks Ye’s second appearance on the national spelling stage. She tied for fifth place in the 2010 competition. She is an 8th grader at Lamberton Middle School here in Carlisle.

High Street in Carlisle, has been renamed Joanna Ye Avenue for the 2 days and
restaurants are featuring Joanna Ye sandwiches and specials. The Sentinel photo shows that her whole family is thrilled!

Congratulations Joanna!!

Happy First Day of Spring

It's finally here! Celebrate!
Primroses in the flower baskets and boxes...

Snow Again?

Here we go again and it's almost Spring
Only14 more days.
What's up with the snow?

A Step Back in Time - Dills Tavern

An Evening at the Historic Dill's Tavern
Dillsburg, PA

We spent an evening of music and good eats with Historic Carlisle Friends at Dill's Tavern and former plantation, an early PA business venture of Matthew Dill and family. The Dill family maintained a tavern in the Dillsburg area beginning in the 1750's and this final structure was begun in 1794. Great fiddle, banjo and bass music and delicious culinary offerings!

Irish Civil War Soldiers Lecture @ AHEC, Carlisle PA

March 17 at 7:15pm "Harp and Eagle: Irish-American Volunteers and the Union Army, 1861-1865" presented by Dr. Susannah J. Ural, Associate Professor of History, University of Southern Mississippi.

On the eve of the Civil War, the Irish were one of America's largest ethnic groups, and approximately 150,000 fought for the Union. Analyzing letters and diaries written by soldiers and civilians; military, church, and diplomatic records; and community newspapers, Susannah Ural Bruce significantly expands the story of Irish-American Catholics in the Civil War, and reveals a complex picture of those who fought for the Union. While the population was diverse, many Irish Americans had dual loyalties to the U.S. and Ireland, which influenced their decisions to volunteer, fight, or end their military service. When the Union cause supported their interests in Ireland and America, large numbers of Irish Americans enlisted. However, as the war progressed, the Emancipation Proclamation, federal draft, and sharp rise in casualties caused Irish Americans to question—and sometimes abandon—the war effort because they viewed such changes as detrimental to their families and futures in America and Ireland. By recognizing these competing and often fluid loyalties, The Harp and the Eagle sheds new light on the relationship between Irish-American volunteers and the Union Army, and how the Irish made sense of both the Civil War and their loyalty to the United States.

We still have rooms available on this St Patrick’s Day!
Come enjoy dinner at one of Carlisle's wonderful restaurants, the AHEC lecture and a luxurious night at the Award Winning Carlisle House Bed & Breakfast.

Vietnam Lecture @ AHEC, Carlisle

Feb 4, 7:15pm; enjoy a pub bite out and night at Carlisle House afterward. Lecture with Dr. John Prados, author of "Vietnam, The History of an Unwinnable War, 1945 - 1975" Part of the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center monthly public lecture series, "Perspectives in Military History."