Long before European settlers arrived, Native Americans found ample deer, bear, and small game in Pfoutz Valley, while fish, clams, and mussels abounded in the Juniata River and Cocolamus Creek. In 1754, the Penn family signed the Albany Treaty with the Iroquois Confederation, opening the land north of Kittatinney Mountain for settlement. John Pfoutz brought his family north from Lancaster County in 1755, and German, English, and Scotch-Irish families from Lancaster and Chester counties soon followed. The Germans chose woodlands, while the English and Scotch-Irish preferred grassy banks along rivers and creeks. By the early 1800s, mills dotted Cocolamus Creek and Hart's Run, grinding flour, sawing wood, and fulling wool. Over time the valley became almost self-sufficient, with tanneries, tailors, shoe and harness makers, wagon makers, carpet makers, woodworkers, blacksmiths, iron mines, and limestone kilns. On farms generally 100 to 200 acres in size, harvesters gathered corn, wheat, barley, flax, tobacco, garden vegetables, fruits, and nuts, while raising cattle, sheep, hogs, and poultry, and wild game remained abundant into the 19th century. In the pioneer years, farmers hauled excess grain to Philadelphia in Conestoga wagons, but after canals arrived in Liverpool and Millerstown in 1829, lighter wagons were enough to carry goods to the barges. Industrialization in the late 19th century drew away many farm hands, tenant farmers, and tradesmen and temporarily challenged the valley's economic stability, but farmers gradually replaced lost workers with mechanized equipment and prosperity returned. Today Pfoutz Valley remains strongly agricultural, though some residents commute, and descendants of early settlers continue to own and work the land on larger, more specialized farms whose products move quickly by highway to markets beyond Liverpool and Millerstown.