Description
Case files of the court of common pleas showing records of civil actions. The majority of the papers for early years are writs issued by the court. They include original writs and are a mix of the court's copy and the Sherriff's returnable writs with his notation of service. Writs include attachment, capias ad respondendum, capias ad satisfaciendum, fieri facias, replevin, and venditioni exponas, as well as numerous aliases and pluries. Later years also include narratives, depositions, bail bonds, and arbitrators' appointments and reports. Many documents include the defendant's location and occupation.
Note 1: the Appearance Docket for 1750-1765 April are missing and the assignment of year, court term, and case number is based on notations on the documents and use of the Ad Sectam and Plaintiff's Indices from the period and Continuance Dockets.
Note 2: Processing for 1761-1776 years made possible through a cooperative Records Care Grant (Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission) and Cumberland County.
Arrangment: By court year and therein by court term and then numerically by case number for that term.
Note 1: Small alphabet ("a," "b," etc.) following a case number posssibly represents a case not appearing before the courts and the number reused creating two cases with the same number.
Note 2: A large alphabet ("A," "B," etc.) following the court year and term indicates cases unidentified to date and the documents have no case numbers.
Note 3: Those years with petitions for Sheriff's Deeds are located after the cases at the end.
Index: See "Sub-series" for years and the "Inventory" for that year.
Related Records: 1. Ad Sectum (Adverse/Defendant) Index 2. Plaintiff Index 3.Continuance Dockets 4. Appearance Dockets 1765-1776.