Saint Thomas, Pennsylvania

St. Thomas Township is a township in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 5,935 at the 2010 census.It is the birthplace of both Baseball Hall of Fame member Nellie Fox, and United States Army brigadier general and legislator, Charles Thomas Campbell.HistoryThe Franklin Furnace Historic District, Chambersburg and Bedford Turnpike Road Company Toll House, and Woodland are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.The account of the township's formation was lost when the Confederates burned the county seat Chambersburg in 1864, but according to the recollection of older citizens the township was organized ca. 1818 on territory taken from Peters and Hamilton townships. The area was settled in the 1740s by, among others, Col. John Armstrong, John Campbell, and John Dixon. There were several Campbell families among the early settlers, and an eighteenth-century map labels the village simply "Campbells". It was later called "Campbelltown", a designation that prevailed for many years until, at the suggestion of William Archibald, it received the official designation "St. Thomas", purportedly still honoring Thomas Campbell, who had laid out the village. The name "Saint Thomas" was reportedly a joke concerning Thomas Campbell's tendency to swear. The organization of the town appears to have been concurrent with the organization of the St. Thomas or "Campbeltown" Presbyterian Church in 1818. Not long afterwards local Evangelical Lutheran and German Reformed congregations joined the Presbyterians in the erection of a church building, which the three congregations shared from 1829 until 1854.