 Present-day Sugarloaf Township was initially part of Newport Township (one of the original townships of Connecticut in Northeastern Pennsylvania).The first colonists established settlements close to the Susquehanna River and the territory that is now the Conyngham Valley remained virtually unchartered for quite some time.The world first heard of the Conyngham Valley after the Sugarloaf massacre of 1780 in which roughly ten Americans were killed by a group of Native Americans and perhaps a handful of loyalists.