In 1785, families from the young state of New Jersey, led by brothers Reuben and Jeremiah Manning, moved to this area and laid out streets for the new town of Waynesburg. Across the river, Scotch-Irish settlers headed for local taverns would say, "Let's go to the Jersey shore!" and when the town incorporated in 1826, Jersey Shore became the permanent name. In 1773, Colonel John Henry Antes settled on the eastern shore of the West Branch Susquehanna near the mouth of Antes Creek, and by 1776 conflicts with American Indians caused him to build a small fort on a bluff opposite the site of Jersey Shore, now the village of Antes Fort. On July 4, 1776, local settlers, not realizing that America's founding fathers were signing the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, declared their own independence from Britain as the Fair Play Men and signed the document under the Tiadaghton Elm near where Pine Creek flows into the Susquehanna River. In the 1830s, Jersey Shore became a popular stop on the Pennsylvania Canal, and a lock can still be seen at Pennsylvania Avenue and Thompson Street. Just 20 years later, railroads moved in, and by 1905 two trolley lines carried workers from town to the rail car shops near Avis and to the Pennsylvania Railroad station in Antes Fort. Today, the Pine Creek Rail Trail follows an old rail route from Wellsboro to Jersey Shore. During a blizzard on Sunday morning, December 9, 1917, with temperatures near zero, the worst fire in Jersey Shore history burned most of the second block of South Main Street as firefighters struggled with frozen leather fire hoses, 15 business buildings burned down, and 32 families lost their homes. The West Branch Susquehanna River is part of the 64,000-square-mile Chesapeake Bay Watershed, and the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail allows boaters to paddle waterways from Jersey Shore to the bay while honoring Captain John Smith, who mapped nearly 3,000 miles of the bay and rivers from 1607 to 1609. An 1854 lithograph by J.B. Bachelder shows Long Island with covered toll bridges on both sides, the steeples of the Presbyterian and Baptist churches on South Main Street, and the steeples of the old seminary, which was then being used as West Branch High School.