In the past, Jersey Shore held farms, railroad shops, cigar factories, a foundry, and a large silk mill.

The history of Jersey Shore begins about 50 years before it was incorporated and on the opposite bank of the West Branch Susquehanna River in what is now Nippenose Township.

These pioneers on the north side of the river were counted among the Fair Play Men, a group of squatters who lived outside the jurisdiction of the colonial and revolutionary governments of Pennsylvania.

Many of the settlers did not return to the area until after Sullivan's Expedition had forced the Lenape and other Indians allied with the British further west.

[8] Jersey Shore was originally named Waynesburg by the two brothers, Reuben and Jeremiah Manning, who laid out the town circa 1785.

[8] Around the time that this was happening, a settlement arose on the eastern side of the West Branch Susquehanna River (Nippenose Township), opposite Waynesburg.

The nickname became so fixed that in 1826 the original name of Waynesburg was officially abandoned and changed to Jersey Shore.

[9] Jersey Shore's location on the West Branch Susquehanna River, just downstream from the mouth of Pine Creek made it an ideal location for traders and other businessmen who outfitted the pioneers who settled the westernmost portions of the West Branch Susquehanna River Valley and the Pine Creek valley.

[10] Thomas Martin was a farmer who sold his produce to the people of Jersey Shore and to the men and women who were just passing through.

This firmness and fairness allowed Thomas Martin to rise to a position of prominence in Jersey Shore and Lycoming County.

His reputation for fairness and honesty was passed onto his son Lewis Martin who went on to serve as a Lycoming County prothonotary and as a deputy U.S.

He was a Presbyterian missionary who originally set out from his home of Doylestown Pennsylvania with the intention of serving the pioneers of the west.

In 1901, the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad announced it would build large rail car shops near Avis, 4 miles (6.4 km) west of Jersey Shore, on the far side of Pine Creek.

Jersey Shore Steel Company was founded in 1938, near the end of the Great Depression by John A. Schultz.

[13] In the past, Jersey Shore held farms, railroad shops, cigar factories, a foundry, and a large silk mill.