BERKS COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
ITS HISTORY - PEOPLING OF THE COUNTY
Next to the basic qualities of the land itself, the most important factor determining the destiny of the County is the number and character of the people who settle here.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, immigrants came to America seeking not only religious and political liberty, but also with a desire for new economic opportunities. A mild climate and fertile limestone soil combined to attract the European migrant to Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania was the only colony at that early date which could offer large amounts of developable land which, except for the outermost fringes, was mostly free of Indian depredations. To the people of the European working and farming classes, Pennsylvania offered the strong inducement of a land where a new life could be started with considerable assurance that ordinary diligence, thrift, and industry would provide sizable returns.
Berks County undoubtedly profited from the overall attractiveness of the Commonwealth, for it is noteworthy that William Penn found it attractive for settlement. In 1683, he observed the "Schuylkill being 100 miles boatable above the Falls (i.e. entirely through Berks) and its Course Northwest to the Fountain of Susquehanna is like to be a great Part of the Settlement of Age." Apart from the Schuylkill itself, more than a dozen of its direct and indirect tributaries furnished abundant water and power, and it is only natural that their banks and valleys became the sites of the earliest settlements.
The first European settlement in the County was made in 1701 by the Swedes near the mouth of the Manatawny Creek. This was soon followed, further upstream and into the rich Oley Valley, by the French Huguenots after 1704, the Germans in 1712, and the English after 1720. The English also settled throughout the Maidencreek Valley, and, after 1730, along the Allegheny and Hay Creeks, south of the Schuylkill.
Also among the early settlers were the Welsh in southwestern Berks along the Wyomissing and Cacoosing Creeks; a small group of Hebrews who settled in Reading and Myerstown; Negro slaves of the early ironmasters; and the substantial migration of Germans after 1723 from upstate New York into the Tulpehocken Valley of western Berks.
In 1790, the first federal census of the County reported 30,189 residents, 22,345 of whom were German or of German descent. There were almost 7,000 English and Welsh, and small numbers of Scotch, Irish, Dutch, French, and mulattos or Negroes. Reading Town, the only sizable settlement, had 2,225 residents. The area grew steadily through the years, and by 1860, seventy years later, the County's population had increased to 93,818, of whom 23,162 lived in Reading.
Most of the increase in population through the years has been due to a combination of natural growth (i.e., an excess of births over deaths) and internal migration (i.e., from other areas of the United States into Berks). The County also shared in the great activity in immigration between 1851 and 1920, when almost 34,000,000 people entered the United States from foreign countries.
By 1970, or 180 years after the first census, some 296,382 persons resided in Berks. About 200,000 people lived in Reading and its urbanizing area of 40 square miles. The remaining third were scattered throughout the balance of 820 square miles. Principal growth trends in the past several decades (and within the foreseeable future) indicate that the County should continue to grow at a moderate rate, with most of the growth taking place in the Reading urbanizing area. This is the area between Leesport Borough on the north, Birdsboro Borough on the east, Lancaster County on the south, and Wernersville Borough on the west.