I recently came across a story from Pennsylvania German magazine dated January 1907. It provides a map of the state and numbers each of the sixty-seven counties in succession as they were formed.

Accompanying each county’s date of formation is “a brief reference to the acquisition of territory, the onward movement of the settlers, the conflicts between the whites and Indians or among the whites themselves arising out of conflicting claims, the different types of national character and the part played by each nationality.”   

The direction of the arrows on the map indicates the source or sources from which the counties were derived. For example, Lancaster (4) was derived from Chester (3) and yielded territory in the formation of the counties of York (5), Cumberland (6), Berks (7), Northumberland (10), Dauphin (16) and Lebanon (48).”

Space doesn’t allow for the dates and formations of all Pennsylvania counties. I’ve focused on the middle Susquehanna Valley, when the counties were formed and the people who settled there.

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10: Northumberland, 1773. Count Zinzendorf visited Shamokin (now Sunbury) in 1742, and the Moravians established a mission there in 1747. Settlements were made soon after by the English, Scotch-Irish, and Germans from the lower counties.

22: Lycoming, 1795. Originally the population of the county was composed of Scotch-Irish and Quakers, who moved in from the lower counties. They were followed by the Germans and by people from New England, New York, and New Jersey, who have thrown into obscurity, the origin of the first settlers.

30. Centre, 1800. The first white settlers, German and Irish, reached the county in about 1768. They were driven out by the Revolution and returned after its close. It’s believed many Germans may have been in the county, based on a statement by a local historian that German was taught in all of the schools in the south side of the county up until about 1850.

41. Potter, 1804. The first settlement was made in 1808/ The settlers came from the eastern states and the older Counties of Pennsylvania.

42. Tioga, 1804. The first settlement was made about 1795, A colony from Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, and Philadelphia located near Wellsboro in 1800. Most of the early settlers were of New England or New York origin.

47. Columbia, 1813. Settlement began to be made around the start of the Revolution. Many of the settlers were from the lower counties of the state. Catawissa was originally a settlement of Quakers, who made way for the Germans.

49. Union, 1183. A few pioneers settled around the mouth of Penns Creek between 1750 and 1755 but were driven away by the Indians in 1755. Many Irish and German Adventurers moved into the county after 1768. Settlers from the lower counties followed.

64. Montour, 1850. This area was settled during the Revolutionary period from the lower counties by families including Philip Maus and Colonel William Montgomery.

65, Snyder, 1855. This region was also settled during the Revolutionary period by settlers from the older counties, many of them of German descent.

As more people flooded into southeastern Pennsylvania, the new arrivals, looking for more space, pushed into the Susquehanna and Juniata Valleys, and westward.