Note: In this section, books of a purely genealogical nature, containing primarily "family tree" information, along with books consisting of transcriptions of church and cemetery records, have been avoided. Abstracts of court records, likewise, have not been included in this listing. Those types of books will be listed in a separate section. This section is devoted to books whose subjects are primarily historical. The earliest attempts by historians to document the history of Old~Bedford County was during the first half of the Nineteenth Century.
In 1827 Thomas B. McElwee published his book, M'Elwee's Memoirs. The book included memories of the early settlers of Bedford County and Franklin County during the French and Indian War period. The book quoted the letters of Judge John Dickey and General William Piper.
I. Daniel Rupp was the preeminent historian of Pennsylvania in his day. He produced history books on the various counties either individually or as groups throughout the 1840s. Rupp produced two books which covered the region that was Old~Bedford. The one, History And Topography Of Dauphin, Cumberland, Franklin, Bedford, Adams And Perry Counties, was published in 1846. The other, History And Topography Of Northumberland, Huntingdon, Mifflin, Centre, Union, Columbia, Juniata And Clinton Counties, Pa., was published in 1847.
Rupp utilized transcriptions of documents found in the Pennsylvania Archives to provide details about the early history of the region. His books, therefore dwell largely on the Colonial and Revolutionary War periods and the Euro-American and Indian confrontations. Rupp also provided quite a bit of geographic information to describe the region and the towns within it. Thumbnail sketches about the various townships and towns were included.
