The following article was written by Jean Elizabeth Womack in 1951 for the Lamberton Essay contest for high school students, which was sponsored by the Cumberland County Historical Society. The text is passed on verbatim, without any edits. The original essay can be found at the Cumberland County Historical Society. Note that the original has footnotes, which are omitted here. Unfortunately, we do not have any information on what became of Jean Elizabeth Womack, the author.
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THE Cameron Estate, or “King’s Gap” as it is called, one of the largest, and most picturesque estates in the whole Cumberland Valley, is located on the uppermost heights of the South Mountain, ten miles southwest of Carlisle, in the heart of 48,000 acres of rolling green countryside. Truly, it is a king’s paradise with its long winding mountain road and the massive brown mountainstone building fashioned after an Italian villa.
It is extremely difficult to imagine the amount of work and money that made possible this summer home. In 1908 James McCormick Cameron wished to build such a home but then arose the problem of acquiring enough land and the proper site for his dream. It was then that Samuel Tritt, a surveyor working for Cameron, bought the desired land, a few acres at a time, from the numerous landholders in the region. The method for surveying in those days was placing and replacing a length of chain, thereby giving more accurate measurements than even todays modern instruments yield.
Of course, when the site for the house was chosen, it was next to impossible to reach it. This necessitated the building of a road. Now Mr. Cameron did not want just any dirt road – he hired laborers from the surrounding communities who, with picks and shovels, built the four and eight-tenth mile road over the old fire line at a cost of $60,000. it is a very noticeable fact that the road, very narrow and extremely curved, at some places turns in a 90 degree angle. This, of course, was to make the long trot up the mountainside an easier one for the horses. The dirt road, however, was unsatisfactory for it made the coaches dusty. Because of this Cameron had it blacktopped by John Clark for the sum of $40,000.
This road, starting from the Pine Road, continues until it passes within 100 yards of the rear of the house, where it curves around until it branches off into two roads, one leading past the caretaker’s dwelling and the other to the main house.
The house, itself, approximately 200 feet long and 100 feet wide, is built from brown mountainstone obtained from Cameron’s own land. There is still a huge quarry where the stone was mined. The Boston and old English ivy-clad manor is styled after an Italian villa with a flat roof and huge windows. It contains twenty-four rooms and eight bathrooms and was erected for the price of $1,000.000. The front of the structure has a stone canopy leading to the large glass doors. On either side of the doors are huge windows rising toward the high ceiling. The rear is styled in a more elaborate manner, having a terrace of flagstone from Waterfort, Pennsylvania, and a two-foot wall of the same material as the house. One hundred carloads of cinders were required to fill in the mountainside to make a firm foundation for this one-hundred foot long and seventy-five foot wide porch. It was on this terrace, that Cameron, in his later years, loved to sit with his favorite rifle mounted on a tripod, and shoot deer on the mountain directly opposite the house. It was here too, that on clear days, he could view Carlisle, Newville and surrounding towns, looming in the distance. Also, being of a superstitious nature, Cameron, on warm summer evenings, would sit on the terrace for hours, gazing at the sky through a giant telescope, trying to read the secrets of the stars.
Surrounding and adding beauty to the house are the rose gardens, the tennis courts and the practice golf course. The magnificent rose gardens were Mrs. Camerons own interest; she took pride in her roses and had many varieties, both domestic and imported, making these gardens a beautiful showplace. It was here, too, that Miss Mary Cameron, James Mc Cormick’s sister, gave a yearly tea to which many friends and notables were invited.
Located approximately 300 yards from the main house is the caretaker’s eight room dwelling. It is this man’s job to look after the whole 48,000 acres of land. John Clark, whose son, George Clark, now lives in Centerville, Pennsylvania, was caretaker and manager of the estate for thirty years. It was during this time that he found the famed “Three Babes in the Woods” on Cameron’s property.
When Cameron began construction on the house he was faced with the problem of obtaining an ample water supply. He finally concluded that the water would have to be pumped from the bottom of the mountain. This cost a considerable amount of money, as not only did it call for a pipe line to be dug straight up the mountain, where it was necessary to erect a 25,000 gallon water tower.
Electricity for the house is provided by three large diesel engines. Since the mansion is now unoccupied, only one engine is operating. This is to provide electricity for the caretaker’s house.
Between the main house and that of the caretaker is found a large ten-car garage which until recently housed two of the finest carriages in the country – one a Concord carriage and the other a Brewster Coach made by the Brewster Company, Fifth Avenue, New York. Both of these are now in the State Museum at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. On the second floor of the garage are apartments with ample room to accommodate twelve people.
One of Cameron’s follies was his icehouse which stands next to the main house. It rises fifteen feet above the level of the ground and protrudes ten feet into the earth for the purpose of insulation. The ice was cut from the Susquehanna River and transported on the Pennsylvania and Reading Railroad to the estate. The icehouse was unsatisfactory because it did not provide enough insulation during the summer months. However, it did serve one purpose, and that was to act as a storage place for the spoils of the garden where was grown the entire vegetable supply for the estate.
Surely, such an immense, magnificent estate must have a great master; likewise, the ancestors of this man must reveal many interesting lives. Simon Cameron, James McCormick’s grandfather, was born in 1798 in Sunbury, Pennsylvania. He was apprenticed to a tailor in his hometown but dissatisfied with this kind of work, he journeyed down the Susquehanna River on a log raft to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he became interested in politics. Soon he became elected to the State Legislature and later to the United States Senate. When the Civil War broke out, he was appointed Secretary of War in Lincoln’s cabinet. However, after negotiating several unsuccessful business transactions, President Lincoln reprimanded him by assigning him as ambassador to Russia. It was through some of these transactions that he swindled the government and became fairly rich. During the height of his popularity, Cameron County, Pennsylvania was named for him March 29, 1860.
Simon’s son, James Donald, the father of James McCormick, was born in 1832. Following in his father’s footsteps, he (James Donald) also became a United States Senator and would have been the only man to have the distinction of holding five terms had he not voluntarily resigned to assure the succession to his son.
James McCormick Cameron was born in 1865. After finishing high school, he attended Yale School of Law. Upon the death of his father he inherited enough money to buy a controlling interest in many stock companies of which the largest was the Market Street Bridge in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. This money also helped him to finance the mountain estate. Although he stayed in the mountains from May to October, his winter home was 319 North Front Street in Harrisburg. It was here that he died on October 16, 1949 leaving the house to his first wife, the former Mrs. Thomas Robinson, whom he had married when he was sixty years old. At the time of his death his fortune had amassed to almost $4,000,000, which was divided among his immediate family.
The Cameron Estate, now the property of Cameron’s daughter, Mrs. Samuel W. Fleming, Jr., still stands in its beautiful forested surroundings, a picture of grandeur in the beautiful Pennsylvania mountains.
– Jean Elizabeth Womack, 1951