[1] Settlers arrived in the early 1800s, and Scotch Block encompassed approximately 35 square kilometres (10 sq mi) of agricultural land in southwestern Esquesing Township.

[6] Chief of the Equissink (Bronte Creek), Quinipeno, had stated to Indian officers in 1805:While Colonel Butler was our Father we were told our Father the Kind wanted some Land for his people, it was some time before we sold it, but when we found it was wanted by the King to settle his people on it, who we were told would be of great use to us, we granted it accordingly.

Colonel Butler told us the Farmers would help us, but instead of doing so when we encamp on the Land they drove us off and shoot our dogs, and never give us any assistance as was promised to our old Chiefs.

[6]James and John Stewart, early settlers from Perth, Scotland, made a request to the government in 1819 for a Scottish settlement in Esquesing Township.

[7][8] That same year, James McNab, a land promoter living in Toronto Township, petitioned to bring 30 families of Scottish origin to Ontario from the economically depressed towns of Barnet and Ryegate in the US state of Vermont.

There is a market here every day for veal and mutton, and people come in from the County with butter and cheese and eggs, potatoes, onions and carrots and melons, squashes and pumpkins with many things unknown in Scotland.

There is a good road goes straight north from York into the County for Fifty miles, and the farm houses almost all two storeys high.

[7] The Stewarts' request for the establishment of Scotch Block in 1819 had described that the settlement would "support a regular bred Clergyman of their Persuasion and who understand their language".

When it proved difficult to attract a permanent church minister, the Scotch Block residents petitioned the government for assistance, writing [sic]: Their Sabbaths are silent, and in danger of being forgotten - The sound of the gospel very seldom reaches their ears - But, in a land of Strangers, they are wandering like shiip, without a Sheephard, and their rising generation are in danger of sinking into a state of barborous ignorance.

[12] In 1971, the Scotch Block Dam and Reservoir opened to control water levels on Sixteen Mile Creek.