The Ulster-Scots who had been able to finance their journey to America tended to move beyond the already inhabited sections of the province and homesteaded in the frontier regions. In the period from the yeare 1717 through the 1750s the "frontier" was in the present-day counties of Berks, Lebanon, Lancaster, York and Adams. Through the 1760s and into the 1770s the "frontier" was pushed north and westward with the acquisition of lands from the Indians and the erection of Cumberland and Northampton Counties in 1750 and 1752 respectively. In 1771 Bedford County was formed out of Cumberland. In the following yeare Northumberland County was formed out of Northampton. Then in 1773 Westmoreland County was formed out of the western portion of Bedford. The erection of each new county points to the influx of settlers; as the frontier regions were settled and became more and more crowded, the demand for conveniently accessible courts of law arose. When the PENNSYLVANIA Assembly saw that a particular region had reached a certain level of inhabitants and merited being separated into smaller jurisdictional regions, it granted the requests and erected a new county.
There were quite a number of German families who were also frontier homesteaders. The two groups coexisted somewhat peaceably in the frontier primarily because they were both outsiders in regard to the English. The mountainous region in the centre of PENNSYLVANIA was ideal for the way of life of both groups and sufficiently distanced them from the English in the eastern counties. The Ulster-Scots tended to find the solitary isolation of the Appalachians ideal to their own temperament. The mountain range known as the Appalachians stretches in a curving arc from the northeast corner of the province of PENNSYLVANIA, through the south central region of that province and on southward through Maryland, Virginia and into the Carolinas. At the time of the initial waves of the Ulster-Scot migration it served as a natural boundary line between the English colonies and the Indian lands. Apart from a few instances in which the white settlers (for the most part Ulster-Scots) violated the Indian treaties and moved into the lands to the west of the boundary, the incoming settlers tended to homestead in the great valley just to the east of the Appalachian range. As the lands in PENNSYLVANIA filled up, the incoming settlers moved southward into Virginia and eventually into the Carolinas. Then, in 1754 a new treaty was signed at Albany, New York with the Indian sachems by which they granted tracts of land to the Allegheny Mountains (which define the western edge of the Appalachians) to the province of PENNSYLVANIA. With the prospect of new lands to homestead upon, many residents of the established counties along with new immigrants pushed into that region. In the 1768 New Purchase Treaty, the Indians conveyed lands to the PENNSYLVANIA Provincial Assembly which lay to the west of the Allegheny Mountain Range.
King Charles II's Charter continued to authorize the Penns' authority over the province for the next three quarters of a century. When William Penn was disabled by a stroke in 1712, his wife Hanna assumed proprietary authority. Upon her death in 1727, Penn's sons and grandsons became proprietors. Their authority survived numerous challenges. Legislators complained almost immediately after the colony's founding about Penn's power which led him in 1683 to relinquish his votes in the upper house (Council). Continued agitation caused him to plead that they not be so "governmentish." By 1710, he was inclined to surrender the government to the Crown, but his illness prevented such action. The most serious threat emerged in the 1750s and '60s when the proprietary government failed to protect the colony's frontiers from the French, Indians, and possibly also the Scots-Irish settlers in the interior. Assuming that royal control of the colony would result in more effective protection, Benjamin Franklin and his political allies tried to persuade the King to abolish the proprietorship. Parliament's revision of colonial policy and the controversy it provoked overwhelmed Franklin's appeal. The controversy ultimately produced the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the War for American Independence, and the Treaty of Paris of 1783, which nullified the Charter and produced the Commonwealth of PENNSYLVANIA as a state in the independent United States of America.
English Quakers were the dominant element, although many English settlers were Anglican. The English settled heavily in the southeastern counties, which soon lost frontier characteristics and became the center of a thriving agricultural and commercial society. Philadelphia became the metropolis of the British colonies and a center of intellectual and commercial life.
Blair County was part of the region that was opened up for homesteaders by the Treaty of Albany in 1754. It was not until about 1768, though, that the first settlers moved into the portion of that region which would be given the name of Blair County in 1846. From 1768 until 1774 there were only a few families that had established their homesteads in this collection of mountains and valleys that lay between the Allegheny and Tussey Mountains. Then, between 1775 and 1779 there was a large influx of settlers. The period from 1778 through 1782 was one in which the relations between the Indians and the Euro-American settlers broke down and Indian incursions into the region were increased. Many, perhaps half, of the original pioneer settlers left Bedford County and few of them returned. After the American Revolutionary War was over there occurred a massive migration of people all over the eastern seaboard. Once more settlers flooded into this region; included among them were many Ulster-Scots. The Ulster-Scots and the Germans tended to stick to themselves and settled in different valleys in the part of the region that would be designated as Blair County.