Society, 1878, with a supplement, 1881); Sir G. F. Duckett, Early Sheriffs of Cumberland (Kendal, 1879); J. Denton, “Account of Estates and Families in the County of Cumberland, 1066–1603,” in Antiquarian Society’s Transactions (1887); R. S. Ferguson, History of Cumberland (London, 1890); “Archaeological Survey of Cumberland,” in Archaeologia, vol. liii. (London, 1893); W. Jackson, Papers and Pedigrees relating to Cumberland (2 vols., London, 1892); T. Ellwood, The Landnama Book of Iceland as it illustrates the Dialect and Antiquities of Cumberland (Kendal, 1894); Victoria County History, Cumberland; and Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society.
CUMBERLAND, a city and the county-seat of Allegany county, Maryland, U.S.A., on the Potomac river, about 178 m. W. by N. of Baltimore and about 153 m. S. by E. of Pittsburg. Pop. (1890) 12,729; (1900) 17,128, of whom 1113 were foreign-born and 1100 were of negro descent; (1910) 21,839. Cumberland is served by the Baltimore & Ohio, the Western Maryland, the Pennsylvania, the Cumberland & Pennsylvania (from Cumberland to Piedmont, Virginia), and the George’s Creek & Cumberland railways, the last a short line extending to Lonaconing (19 m.); by an electric line extending to Western Port, Maryland; and by the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, of which it is a terminus. The city is about 635 ft. above sea-level, and from a distance appears to be completely shut in by lofty ranges of hills, which are cut through to the westward by a deep gorge called “The Narrows,” making a natural gateway of great beauty. Cumberland has a large trade in coal, which is mined in the vicinity. As a manufacturing centre it ranked in 1905 second in the state, the chief products being iron, steel, bricks, flour, cement, silk and leather; there is also a large dyeing and cleaning establishment. The value of the city’s factory products increased from $2,900,267 in 1900 to $4,595,023 in 1905, or 58.4%. Cumberland is an important jobbing centre also. The municipality owns and operates its water-works and electric lighting plant. The first settlement of the place was made in 1750; in 1754 Fort Cumberland was erected within what are now the city limits, and in the year following this fort was occupied by General Edward Braddock. Cumberland was laid out in 1763, but there was little growth until 1787, and it was not incorporated as a town until 1815; it was chartered as a city in 1850.
CUMBERLAND, a township of Providence county, Rhode Island, U.S.A., in the N.E. part of the state, about 6 m. N. of Providence and having the Blackstone river for most of its W. boundary. Pop. (1890) 8090; (1900) 8925, of whom 3473 were foreign-born; (1910) 10,107; area, 27.5 sq. m. It is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway. Within its borders are the villages of Cumberland Hill, Diamond Hill, Arnold Mills, Abbott Run, Berkeley, Robin Hollow, Happy Hollow, East Cumberland, and parts of Manville, Ashton, Lonsdale and Valley Falls. The surface of the township is generally hilly and rocky. In the N. part is a valuable granite quarry; and limestone, and some coal, iron and gold are also found. Cumberland has been called the “mineral pocket of New England.” The Blackstone and its tributaries provide considerable water power; and there are various manufactures, including cotton goods, silk goods, and horse-shoes and other iron ware. The value of the township’s factory product in 1905 was $3,171,318, an increase of 80.6% since 1900, this ratio of increase being greater than that shown by any other “municipality” in the state having a population in 1900 of 8000 or more. At Lonsdale, William Blackstone (c. 1595–1675), the first permanent white settler within the present limits of Rhode Island, built his residence, “Study Hall,” about 1635. Cumberland was originally a part of Rehoboth, and then of Attleborough, Massachusetts, and for many years was called, like other sparse settlements, the Gore, or Attleborough Gore. In 1747, by the royal decree establishing the boundary between Massachusetts and Rhode Island, Attleborough Gore, with other territory formerly under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, was annexed to Rhode Island, and the township of Cumberland was incorporated, the name being adopted in honour of William Augustus, duke of Cumberland. In 1867 a part of Cumberland was set off to form the township of Woonsocket.
CUMBERLAND MOUNTAINS (or more correctly the Cumberland Plateau or Highlands), the westernmost of the three great divisions of the Appalachian uplift in the United States, composed of many small ranges of mountains (of which Cumberland Mountain in eastern Kentucky is one). It extends from Pennsylvania to Alabama, attaining its greatest height (about 4000 ft.) in Virginia. The plateau is rich in a variety of mineral products, of which special mention may be made of coal, which occurs in many places, and of the beautiful marbles quarried in that portion of the plateau which lies between Virginia and Kentucky and crosses Tennessee. The plateau has an abrupt descent, almost an escarpment, into the great Appalachian Valley on its E., while the W. slope is deeply and roughly broken. The whole mass is eroded in Virginia into a maze of ridges. Cumberland Mountain parts the waters of the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers. This range and the other ranges about it are perhaps the loveliest portion of the whole plateau. The peaks here and in the Blue Ridge to the E. are the highest of the Appalachian system. Forest-filled valleys, rounded hills and rugged gorges afford in every part scenery of surpassing beauty. The Cumberland Valley between the Cumberland range and the Pine range is one of special fame. In the former range there are immense caverns and subterranean streams. Cumberland Gap, crossing the ridge at about 167 ft. above the sea, where Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee meet, is a gorge about 500 ft. deep, with steep sides that barely give room in places for a roadway. The mountains, river and gap were all discovered by a party of Virginians in 1748, and named in honour of the victor of Culloden, William, duke of Cumberland. Afterwards the gap gained a place in American history as one of the main pathways by which emigrants crossed the mountains to Kentucky and Tennessee. During the Civil War it was a position of great strategic importance, as it afforded an entrance to eastern and central Tennessee from Kentucky, which was held by the Union arms; and it was repeatedly occupied in alternation by the opposing forces.
The mountaineers of Kentucky and Tennessee are a strange stock, who retain in their customs and habits the primitive conditions of a life that has elsewhere long since disappeared. They have been pictured in the novels of Miss Murfree and John Fox, Junr. They are a tall, straight, angular folk, of fine physical development; the volunteers for the Union army from Kentucky and Tennessee during the Civil War—most of whom came from the non-slave-holding mountain region—exceeded in physical development the volunteers from all other states. For the education of these mountaineers Major-General Oliver Otis Howard founded in 1895 at Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, the Lincoln Memorial University (co-educational; non-sectarian; opened in 1897), which has collegiate, normal training and industrial courses, and an affiliated school of medicine, Tennessee Medical College, at Knoxville. The university had in 1907–1908 14 instructors and 570 students. Berea College in Kentucky was a pioneer institution for the education of mountaineers.
CUMBERLAND RIVER, a large southern branch of the Ohio river, U.S.A., rising in the highest part of the Cumberland plateau in south-east Kentucky, and emptying into the Ohio in Kentucky (near Smithland) after a devious course of 688 m. through that state and Tennessee. It drains a basin of somewhat more than 18,000 sq. m., and is navigable for light-draught steamers through about 500 m. under favourable conditions—Burnside, Pulaski county, 518 m. from the mouth, is the head of navigation—and through 193 m.—to Nashville—all the year round; for boats drawing not more than 3 ft. the river is navigable to Nashville for 6 to 8 months. At the Great Falls, in Whitley county, Kentucky, it drops precipitously 63 ft. Above the falls it is a mountain stream, of little volume in the dry months. It descends rapidly at its head to the highland bench below the mountains and traverses this to the falls, then flows in rapids (the Great Shoals) for some 10 m. through a fine gorge with cliffs 300-400 ft. high, and descends between bluffs of decreasing height and beauty into its lower level. Save in the mountains its gradient is slight, and below the falls, except for a number of small rapids, the
