The first warrant for land in what is now McHenry Township was issued to John Nixon on May 17, 1785. John English and his wife, Fanny Boatman, settled on the largest island in the area as early as 1784. They left hurriedly after a warning from a friendly Indian, Shawnee John, returning about a year later. Claudius Boatman and his son-in-law, Comfort Wanzer, married to Mary "Polly" Boatman, settled in the area in 1785. Boatman, a Frenchman by birth, formerly lived in the Buffalo Valley area of Union County, Pennsylvania, near Winfield, then in Mahoning Township in Montour County, before moving further up the West Branch Susquehanna River to Pine Creek. Boatman, at that time married to his second wife, Esther, had a rather large family. A daughter, Rebecca, married and lived a long life despite being partially scalped when she was 15 in 1782; her mother, Boatman's first wife, was killed in the same incident. Esther Boatman served as a nurse and rural physician for the pioneers along Pine Creek. The descendants of Claudius Boatman remain in fairly large numbers in western Lycoming County.