In the spring of 1844 Daniel and Joseph Miller rode into Newbury Township from Somerset County, Pennsylvania, two months on horseback. They were on a prospecting tour. They came to Amos Davis's place, looked at the land and bought farms, and Daniel Miller took the old Woodbridge place.
Christian and Joseph Bontrager bought in Sections 19 and 20 soon after, Emanuel Miller took land in Section 29, and Philip Weirick came about the same time. In November John C. Yoder arrived, also from Somerset County, where he was born in 1821. People called him the doctor, for his skill in healing. Thirty-eight years later he was still on his farm near the Moses Kaufman millrace on the Little Elkhart, and the 1882 county history called him a patriarch among the original Amish.
More families followed, from Pennsylvania first and later from Holmes County, Ohio.
The books do not agree on when it began. The 1882 history's Newbury chapter says 1844, and Ford's chronology of 1920 says the same. The 1882 history's Eden Township chapter says settlement there had begun before 1842. Joseph Borntrager's own sketch says he and his brothers left Pennsylvania on January 3, 1841, though he went to Elkhart County first. The 1920 account of the churches says the Forks congregation was organized in 1842.