Their ancestors were Conestoga Native Americans, many of whom were Christian and had lived peacefully with their European neighbors for decades by bartering handicrafts, hunting, and receiving subsistence food given them by the Pennsylvania government.

The area was called the Manor of Conestoga and may have been (as some historians speculate that it was) set aside by William Penn as a domain in which the Susquehannock tribe could live and hunt.

In the aftermath of the war, a new wave of Scots-Irish immigrants who are now known locally as "The Paxton Boys" encroached on the Penn-ceded land in the back country, often doing so in blatant violation of previously-signed treaties.

Elder then helped organize the settlers into a mounted militia and was named Captain of the group, whom called themselves the "Pextony boys" and claimed that the Natives often raided their homes and killed men, women and children.

Penn placed the remaining sixteen Conestoga in protective custody in Lancaster, though the Pextony Boys broke in on December 27, 1763, and murdered as well as dismembered six adults and eight children.

When the Civil War came close to Manor Township in 1863, the 100th year, Governor Curtin called every able-bodied man to enroll for the defense of the entire State of Pennsylvania.

Citizens of Manor Township and Millersville assembled at the headquarters at Safe Harbor, although the invasion threat to Lancaster County ended as the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge was burned and Lee's army was defeated at the Battle of Gettysburg.

In April 1930, construction began on the dam for the Safe Harbor Water Power Corporation and was completed twenty months later.

The land is considered by soil scientists to be as fertile as any in the United States, and the vast majority of development has occurred in the north eastern section of the Township.