The Centre Turnpike was constructed in 1770 and provided access to the valley of Roaring Creek, roughly following the current course of Pennsylvania Route 487 and Pennsylvania Route 54. The Reading Road was later constructed in the watershed and ran in a southeasterly direction. Quakers were living in the valley of the creek by the 1770s and land on the creek was patented to Samuel Shakespeare in 1773. A number of settlers arrived in the valley from the Philadelphia area via the Reading Road. Soon after the end of the American Revolutionary War, farms were appearing along the creek's banks.