 With the signing of the first Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768 , the British gained control from the Iroquois of lands south of the West Branch . However , white settlers continued to appropriate land , including tracts in and near the future site of Lock Haven , not covered by the treaty . In 1769 , <unk> Campbell , the first white settler in the area , built a log cabin near the present site of Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania , and by 1773 William Reed , another settler , had built a cabin surrounded by a stockade and called it Reed 's Fort . It was the westernmost of 11 mostly primitive forts along the West Branch ; Fort Augusta , at what is now Sunbury , was the easternmost and most defensible . In response to settler incursions , and encouraged by the British during the American Revolution ( 1775 – 83 ) , Indians attacked colonists and their settlements along the West Branch . Fort Reed and the other white settlements in the area were temporarily abandoned in 1778 during a general evacuation known as the Big Runaway . Hundreds of people fled along the river to Fort Augusta , about 50 miles ( 80 km ) from Fort Reed ; some did not return for five years . In 1784 , the second Treaty of Fort Stanwix , between the Iroquois and the United States , transferred most of the remaining Indian territory in Pennsylvania , including what would become Lock Haven , to the state . The U.S. acquired the last remaining tract , the Erie Triangle , through a separate treaty and sold it to Pennsylvania in 1792 . 
