Since its founding in 1751, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, has been at the crossroads of history as the site of Washington's headquarters during the Whiskey Rebellion, a city shelled and occupied by Confederate forces and the home to Dickinson College and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. With lively vignettes and firsthand accounts, Joseph David Cress recounts the remarkable history of the borough. Tales of the McClintock Slave Riot of 1847 and the courthouse fire of 1845 stand alongside the legendary figures of Molly Pitcher and all-American athlete Jim Thorpe. Cress chronicles Carlisle's evolution from an outpost on Pennsylvania's rough-and-tumble frontier to a vibrant and thriving hub of the Cumberland Valley.

Joseph David Cress is an award-winning journalist with almost twenty years of full-time newspaper experience. For eleven years, he has worked as a staff reporter with the Sentinel in Carlisle. His first book, Remembering Carlisle: Tales from the Cumberland Valley, was released in November 2009. Murder & Mayhem in Cumberland County is his second book with The History Press. Cress lives in York, Pennsylvania, with his wife Stacey, dogs Dottie and Rosco and cats Chewie and Boone.