The first lots at the mouth of Fishing Creek were surveyed in 1769 when European settlers began moving into the area, and in the same year, the Penn family purchased 1060 acres (430 hectares) of land upstream of Benton. In 1778, Moses Van Campen built a fort of logs covered with earth with a small swivel cannon on Fishing Creek to protect settlers on the frontier. There were settlers on the creek in Orange Township in 1780, and the Fishing Creek valley north of Orangeville, in what is now Stillwater, was first settled in 1783 by Daniel McHenry. The headwaters of the creek were settled in the late 1780s and early 1790s. Leonard Rupert established a ferry on the creek in 1786. The first sawmill on the upper portion of Fishing Creek was built in the late 1790s; it was destroyed in a flood in 1848.