Before 1736, all settlement in Pennsylvania was kept east of the Susquehanna River, but the Indian Treaty of 1736 extended Lancaster County's boundary westward indefinitely.

Quaker families from Lancaster and Chester counties immediately set out across the Susquehanna to find new land.

These settlers utilized the Middletown Ferry to access the west bank of the river, and when they reached what is now Newberry Township, they settled throughout the Fishing Creek and Bennetts Run valleys.

Prior to the start of the Revolutionary War, the early Quaker settlers became dissatisfied with the quality of the farmland in the Newberry Township and began to move out.

Later, a new meetinghouse was built halfway between Lewisberry and the Newberrytown meeting land, and the tract was developed as a town in 1791.

Newberrytown was situated on the road from Lancaster to Carlisle (which crossed the Susquehanna River at the York Haven Ferry), and became an important stopping place along the way.

Early settlers were also attracted to the vicinity of Yocumtown because of the water power of Fishing Creek.

Goldsboro and York Haven prospered due to their location on the Susquehanna River and adjoining canal route.

Both Goldsboro and the village of Cly were located along the important stagecoach route between York and Harrisburg, where a turnpike was completed between the two towns in 1816.

Large hotels, dry goods and hardware stores, copper shops that manufactured flour barrels, and a sawmill all became part of the town's healthy economy.

Large keelboats of wheat were brought down the river to the mills in York Haven, then the flour was sent by wagon or canal to Baltimore.

Newberrytown, Cly, Conewago Heights, Yocumtown, Erney, and Pleasant Grove were the centers of population at that time.