Warwick has been under human occupation for at least twelve thousand years though cohesive and relatively permanent communities of Indians probably did not appear until about two thousand years ago. They liked this area because of plentiful springs of fresh water and the proximity of the Wawayanda Creek which teemed with fish and fowl. The area was remarkably free of infectious diseases and though the quantity of food was small its variety was seemingly endless.

Sedentary farming came very late, not that long before the appearance of European trappers and hunters in the 1650s or so. Population density increased but remained extremely low. Hunting and gathering practices remained predominant.

When whites began to settle permanently in the area, after 1703 when a land patent, called Wawayanda, was signed with the local Minsi Indians, the largest aboriginal village was Mistucky. In 1719 Benjamin Aske purchased a small portion of the patent and established a farm, called Warwick, from which the present village soon took its name. In the 1730s, the ancient Wawayanda Path was transformed into a colonial King's Highway and the area was opened up to white settlement. In 1749 a Colonel Beardsly bought land along the Wawayanda Creek from Aske and began to subdivide it. By 1770, the Indians had left and Warwick village was emerging as a provisioning, social and religious center for surrounding farming families.