The first Europeans settlers were Germans from the Palatine region of Prussia where they cultivated vineyards and other crops on farms along the Rhine River. Religious wars had brought endless misery and devastation to their homeland and destroyed their livelihoods. They joined a major exodus of Teutonic people who saw migration as the only solution to survival. They heeded the inspiring claims of William Penn, the English Quaker who had founded the city of Philadelphia in 1682 and was selling large parcels of the Crown’s land in the colonies of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The offer included a guarantee of religious freedom and economic opportunity.

Peter Bernhardt and his sons-in-law, Casper Shafer and J.G. Wintermute were the first of several waves of immigrants to settle in Stillwater. The arrived in 1741. They travelled via London to Philadelphia and headed up the Delaware River to claim land they had bought sight unseen. They were welcomed by a landscape of rolling hills lush with dense forests and pristine lakes and streams. As their ancestors had done before them, these brave trailblazers built farms and homes along a generous river which nourished their development. The Paulinskill River provided a source of energy to turn mills, water to irrigate fields and a transportation artery connecting them with Philadelphia and the rest of the world.

Experienced farmers, the German pioneers put their hands to the plow, cleared rocky land and felled trees in thick woodlands. They built mills, foundries, kilns and tanneries and soon sent products down river which they could trade for other merchandise. Demonstrating extraordinary courage and physical stamina, they transformed the region into a flourishing agricultural hub on the Paulinskill River. Down in Philadelphia, news spread of prosperity upriver and a growing number of immigrants came to settle down in Stillwater.