Page:History of Cumberland, Maryland 2.djvu/276



The various settlements west of Sideling Hill continued to grow in numbers, until the population became sufficiently great to justify the general desire for the erection of a new county, in order that the public business might be more readily transacted. The great distance which the people in the neighbor- hood of Fort Cumberland were compelled to travel in order to attend court, and to look after the records of their lands, &c., also proved of great inconvenience. The first steps towards furnishing greater con- veniences were in the direction of incorporating a town, and at the meeting of the Legislature in 1787 a petition was read in the House praying that the town of Cumberland might be established, the town having already been laid oflf in 1785, by Thomas Beall, of Samuel, who was owner of the land. The town was located upon a tract of land called " Walnut Bottom," which was described as "beginning at two bounded white oak trees standing on a cliff of rocks at the lower end of a bottom near half a mile