were not only the most numerous but also the most persistent of these
frontiersmen. Also, nine of these men, that is all except Clark, Jones,
and King, appear on the tax lists for Northumberland County for the year
1785.[24] Interestingly enough, six of these nine were Scotch-Irish; and
although our sample is limited, it is readily apparent that the stalwart
Scots had a way of "hanging on." It would be presumptuous to conclude
that seventy-five per cent of the residents before 1778 returned by
1785; but it is fact that some forty families had made improvements in
the area by 1773 when William Cooke was sent out by the Land Office to
"Warn the People of[f] the unpurchased Land."[25] Furthermore, as
indicated earlier, some fifty families appear on the assessments for
1786, more than half of whom had been in the region before.
Any effort to analyze the population in terms of stability and mobility
runs head-on into the creation of new townships in the 1780's, the
inability to establish death rates for this frontier, and the inadequacy
of probate records. The result is that the data are intuitively rather
than statistically sound. Chart 5 offers a comparison of tax lists over
a period of nine years as the basis for some conclusions regarding the
stability and mobility of the Fair Play settlers.
CHART 5
Population Stability and Mobility
Based Upon a Comparison of Tax Lists
For the Period From 1778 to 1787.[26]
1778-80 1781 1783-84 1786 1787
==========================================================
Number of residents
assessed 27 29 34 40 68
Number appearing on
previous assessments 6 19 21 14 33
----------------------------------------------------------
Except for the 1783-84 figures, all of the tax data are for State taxes.
The exception is the listing for the federal supply tax in 1783-84. The
steady growth rate of the area is easily recognizable both in raw
figures and in percentages. Beginning with an increase of a little more
than seven per cent between the first two listings, we find a seventy
per cent increase in the final figures. The tremendous increase in the
last two assessments may be due to the purchase of 1784 and the
subsequent legitimizing of claims through the establishment of
pre-emption rights.
The stability of the population is particularly noted in the
consistently high percentage of residents with some tenure in the
valley. Furthermore, the apparent contradiction of this statement by the
decline to fourteen residents in the 1786 listing who had once left and
then returned is offset when one examines the neighboring township
assessments for that same year. Here fourteen additional names of former
Fair Play settlers are to be found which would sustain the
characteristic pattern of tenure. The statistical problem is complicated
by the creation of new townships following the purchase of 1784. Pine
Creek and Lycoming were the new designations for the former Fair Play
territory, Pine Creek running from the creek of that same name west, and
Lycoming extending from Pine Creek east to Lycoming Creek.
Petitions from the area in 1778, 1781, and 1784 give a similar picture.
Almost half of the names which are found on the tax lists appear on two
or more of these appeals. These include a distress petition in June of
1778, and petitions asking recognition of pre-emption rights in 1781 and
1784.[27] The signatures on the petitions range in number from
thirty-nine to fifty-one, and at least twenty-four of these settlers
signed two or more of these documents. The very nature of these
petitions, particularly the later ones, indicates the tremendous desire
on the part of these sturdy pioneers to remain in or return to their
homes in the West Branch Valley. Here too, however, this tenacity of
purpose is not strictly confined to the Scotch-Irish.
What conclusions can be drawn from this analysis of the demographic
factors in the Fair Play settlement? Particularly evident is the
dominance of the Scotch-Irish, who numerically composed the greatest
national stock group in the population. This dominance, as we have
already noted, greatly influenced the political and social institutions
of the area. Secondly, one might consider the numbers of English
settlers, as compared with the number of Germans, surprising. As a
matter of fact, if one adds the numbers of Scots and Welsh inhabitants
to the English and Scotch-Irish, the result is an "English" percentage
of seventy-seven and one half for the entire population. Thus it is
quite logical to assume that English customs and language would prevail,
and they did. Incidentally, it should be added that the "English" nature
of the population, combined with the Scotch-Irish plurality, meant that
the Scotch-Irish were more representative of this frontier than they
were innovators of its customs and values.
If a majority of the Fair Play settlers came from the British Isles,
from where did they emigrate in America? Here it is quite clear that
these frontiersmen were predominantly from the lower Susquehanna Valley
and southeastern Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania was to them a land of
liberty and opportunity;[28] and when they failed to find these
privileges in the settled areas, they moved out on the frontier where
they could make their own rules, that is to say, establish their own
familiar institutions. The result was the Fair Play system.
Although the Fair Play settlers came to America and central Pennsylvania
for the usual political, economic, and social reasons, the two Stanwix
treaties and the Indian raids of 1778 had the most influence on
population fluctuations. The pioneers came into the territory
over-reaching the limits of the "New Purchase" of 1768. They were driven
out, almost to a man, in the Great Runaway of 1778. And finally, they
returned after the second "New Purchase" in 1784, which resulted in the
recognition of their pre-emption claims for their earlier illegal
settlements. It is interesting to note that pre-emption claims were
recognized in the West Branch Valley some forty-five years prior to
federal legislation to that effect.[29]
Despite fluctuations in the population, the Scotch-Irish were able to
maintain their hold over the valley and thus influence the pattern of
development for this frontier outpost. Horace Walpole, addressing the
English Parliament during the American Revolution, said, "There is no
use crying about it. Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian
parson, and that is the end of it."[30] The Scotch-Irish with their
Presbyterianism had run off with the West Branch Valley as well; and
their independent spirit would see them in the foreground of the
"noblest rupture in the history of mankind." That independent spirit and
leadership is particularly noted in the political system which they
established along the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. Their "Fair
Play system" is the primary concern of the next chapter.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] E. Melvin Williams, "The Scotch-Irish in Pennsylvania," _Americana_,
XVII (1923), 382.
[2] This chart was compiled by making a list of eighty names appearing
in an article on the genealogy of the Fair Play men, Helen Herritt
Russell, "The Documented Story of the Fair Play Men and Their
Government," _The Northumberland County Historical Society Proceedings
and Addresses_, XII (1958), 16-43. Mrs. Russell is genealogist of the
Fort Antes chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Jersey
Shore, Pa. The names were checked in Meginness and Linn for possible
national origin. Approximately one-fourth were verified in these
sources. Although this writer questioned the validity of the geographic
conclusions of Meginness and Linn, both have ample documentation for
their findings regarding genealogy and national origins. These findings
can be validated in the published archives. The entire sample of names
was submitted to Dr. Samuel P. Bayard, a folklore specialist and
professor of English at the Pennsylvania State University, whose
determination was made on the basis of linguistic techniques.
[3] Popular control was an American rather than a Scottish influence
necessitated by the absence of sufficient numbers of ministers. In
Scotland, the minister chose his elders and thus dominated the session;
in America, the selection was made by the congregation. _See_ James G.
Leyburn, _The Scotch-Irish: A Social History_ (Chapel Hill, 1962), p.
150.
[4] Carl Wittke, _We Who Built America_ (Cleveland, 1963), p. 57.
[5] American Council of Learned Societies, "Report of Committee on
Linguistic and National Stocks in the Population of the United States,"
_Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1931_
(Washington, 1932), I, 124.
[6] This summary has been prepared from three main sources: Wayland F.
Dunaway, _The Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania_ (Hamden, Conn.,
1962), pp. 89-91; Meginness, _Otzinachson_ (1889), pp. 161-167; and John
B. Linn, _History of Centre and Clinton Counties, Pennsylvania_
(Philadelphia, 1883), pp. 447, 481-482.
[7] Williams, "The Scotch-Irish in Pennsylvania," p. 382.
[8] Wayland F. Dunaway, _A History of Pennsylvania_ (Englewood Cliffs,
N. J., 1948), pp. 131-137. According to John Bacon Deans, "The Migration
of the Connecticut Yankees to the West Branch of the Susquehanna River,"
_The Northumberland County Historical Society Proceedings and
Addresses_, XX (1954), 34-35, eighty-two Yankees came to Warrior's Run
in September of 1775, but none went farther west.
[9] Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, Wilkes-Barre, Pa., The
Zebulon Butler Papers, Jonas Davis to Zebulon Butler, March 16, 1773.
[10] Meginness, _Otzinachson_ (1889), p. 340.
[11] Linn, _History of Centre and Clinton Counties_, p. 475; Meginness,
_Otzinachson_ (1889), pp. 508-511.
[12] Linn, _History of Centre and Clinton Counties_, p. 477; Meginness,
_Otzinachson_ (1889), p. 666.
[13] O'Callaghan, _Documentary History of the State of New York_, I,
587-591.
[14] Meginness, _Otzinachson_ (1889), p. 509. This July 12, 1778,
communication from Colonel Hunter did not fall on deaf ears, for Colonel
Thomas Hartley was ordered to the area with his regiment before the
summer was out.
[15] Linn, _History of Centre and Clinton Counties_, p. 475.
[16] Richmond D. Williams, "Col. Thomas Hartley's Expedition of 1778,"
_Now and Then_, XII (1960), 258-259.
[17] Wallace, _Conrad Weiser_, pp. 362-363. Lydius had gotten the
Indians drunk following the settlement at Albany between the Six Nations
and the Proprietaries. This boundary line (Albany) "crossed the West
Branch below the Big Island," p. 374.
[18] _Pennsylvania Archives_, First Series, XI, 508.
[19] Meginness, _Otzinachson_ (1889), p. 667.
[20] Linn, _History of Centre and Clinton Counties_, p. 477.
_Pennsylvania Archives_, Third Series, XIX, 711-713.
[21] The ambiguity of the term "New Purchase" becomes apparent once it
is recognized that territorial acquisitions of both Stanwix treaties
adopted that appellation.
[22] Dunaway, _The Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania_, pp. 28-49.
[23] Northumberland County Courthouse, Sunbury, Pa., Penns & C.
1782-1811 Tax Assessments, Cabinet #1. This book, found in the cellar of
the courthouse, also contains the Pine Creek assessment for 1789.
[24] _Pennsylvania Archives_, Third Series, XIX, 618-622.
[25] _Pennsylvania Archives_, First Series, XII, 286-287. The squatters,
apparently warned in advance, had practically all vacated the premises.
However, neighbors across the river willingly gave their names.
[26] _Pennsylvania Archives_, Third Series, XIX, 437, 468, 557, 711,
790.
[27] _Pennsylvania Archives_, Second Series, III (1875), 217, 518-522.
The original petitions of 1781 and 1784 are located in the State
Archives, Harrisburg.
[28] Penn's colony was well advertised, and the emphasis upon liberty of
conscience, when contrasted with the restrictions of the Test Act, gives
ample support for the significance of liberty as a motivating factor.
However, economic causes predominated.
[29] Ray Allen Billington, _Westward Expansion_ (New York, 1960), p.
380. Billington refers here to the distribution-pre-emption measure of
1841, whereas Congress actually recognized squatters' rights in the act
of 1830.
[30] Williams, "The Scotch-Irish in Pennsylvania," p. 382.
CHAPTER THREE
_The Politics of Fair Play_
The political system of these predominantly Scotch-Irish squatters in
the Susquehanna Valley, along the West Branch, offers a vivid
demonstration of the impact of the frontier on the development of
democratic institutions. Occupying lands beyond the reach of the
Provincial legislature, with some forty families of mixed national
origin in residence by 1773, these frontier "outlaws" had to devise some
solution to the question of authority in their territory.[1] Their
solution was the extra-legal creation of _de facto_ rule historically
known as the Fair Play system. The following is a contemporary
description of that system:
There existed a great number of locations of the third of April,
1769, for the choicest lands on the West Branch of Susquehanna,
between the mouths of _Lycoming_ and _Pine creeks_; but the
proprietaries, from extreme caution, the result of that experience,
which had also produced the very penal laws of 1768, and 1769, and
the proclamation already stated, had prohibited any surveys being
made beyond the _Lycoming_. In the mean time, in violation of all
law, a set of hardy adventurers, had from time to time, seated
themselves on this doubtful territory. They made improvements, and
formed a very considerable population. It is true, so far as
regarded the rights to real property, they were not under the
protection of the laws of the country; and were we to adopt the
visionary theories of some philosophers, who have drawn their
arguments from a supposed state of nature, we might be led to
believe that the state of these people would have been a state of
continual warfare; and that in contests for property the weakest
must give way to the strongest. To prevent the consequences, real
or supposed, of this state of things, they formed a mutual compact
among themselves. They annually elected a tribunal, in rotation, of
three of their settlers, whom they called _fair play men_, who were
to decide all controversies, and settle disputed boundaries. From
their decision there was no appeal. There could be no resistance.
The decree was enforced by the whole body, who started up in mass,
at the mandate of the court, and execution and eviction was as
sudden, and irresistible as the judgment. Every new comer was
obliged to apply to this powerful tribunal, and upon his solemn
engagement to submit in all respects, _to the law of the land_, he
was permitted to take possession of some vacant spot. Their decrees
were, however, just; and when their settlements were recognized by
law, and _fair play_ had ceased, their decisions were received in
evidence, and confirmed by judgments of courts.[2]
The idea of authority from the people was nothing new; in fact, it is as
old as the Greeks. Nor is the concept of a "social compact," here
implied, particularly novel to the American scene. The theory was that
people hitherto unconnected assembled and gave their consent to be
governed by a certain ruler or rulers under some particular form of
government.[3] Theoretically justified by John Locke in his persuasive
defense of the Glorious Revolution, it had been practiced in Plymouth,
Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire, where practical necessity
had required it for settlements occasionally made outside charter
limits. The frontier, whether in New England or in the West Branch
Valley, created a practical necessity which made popular consent the
basis of an actual government.
They were not "covenanters" in the Congregational sense of having
brought an established church with them to the Fair Play territory. But
the Fair Play settlers understood and subscribed to the principle of
popular control, which was fundamental to such solemnly made and
properly ratified agreements. Separated from the authority of the crown,
detached from the authority of the hierarchy of the church by the
Protestant Reformation, possessing no American tradition of extensive
political experience, these settlers could only depend upon themselves
as proper authorities for their own political system.
Furthermore, the great majority of the settlers who came to the Fair
Play territory came from families who had left their homes in the old
country to escape political, economic, and social restrictions, only to
be made unwelcome in their new homes in the settled areas of
Pennsylvania. Displaced persons in a new country, they were forced by
lives of conflict to seek better opportunity by moving to undeveloped
lands. As a result, they settled along the West Branch of the
Susquehanna, beyond the authority of the crown and outside the pressures
of the Provincial legislature.
If man is a predatory beast in his natural state, a belief some
expressed in the eighteenth century, then it follows naturally that
every society must have some agency of authority and control. The
universally standardized solution to the problem of social control is
government. The Fair Play system was the answer on this Susquehanna
frontier to the need for some legitimate agency of force.[4] This system
vested authority in the people through annual elections of a tribunal of
three of their number. The members of the tribunal were given
quasi-executive, legislative, and judicial powers over all the settlers
in the West Branch Valley "beyond the purchase line."[5]
Although no record of any of these elections has been preserved, the
composition of the Fair Play tribunal in 1776 has been established and
verified by subsequent reviews of land claims in the county courts.[6]
Also, two of the members of the tribunal of 1775 are identified in a
pre-emption claim made before the Lycoming County Court in 1797.[7] It
is interesting to note that among these five men are represented the
three most prominent national stock groups in the area, with the
Scotch-Irish, as our earlier sample demonstrated, in the majority.
Lacking returns of the annual elections of the tribunal and minutes of
its actual meetings, we have only Smith's _Laws of the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania_, petitions from the Fair Play settlers, and the subsequent
review of land questions by the Northumberland and Lycoming County
courts to evaluate the tribunal, its members, and its procedures.
However, these data are more than adequate in giving us a picture of
this _de facto_, though illegal, rule, which existed in the West Branch
Valley until the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1784 brought the territory
under Commonwealth jurisdiction. The composition of the electorate
varied with the fluctuations in population caused by the two Stanwix
treaties, the Revolution, and the Great Runaway.
Since property and religious qualifications were the primary
prerequisites to voting at this time, it seems logical to assume that a
similar basis for suffrage operated in the West Branch Valley.[8] Having
no regular church--the first, a Presbyterian, was not organized until
1792--property qualifications appear to have been the basis for what, in
this area, was practically universal manhood suffrage. Due to the fact
that the entire settlement consisted of squatters, practically all of
the heads of households were property holders, regardless of the
questionable legality of their holdings. The tax lists indicate holdings
of some 100 to 300 acres on the average for residents, so it is
particularly difficult to know whether or not a minimum holding
requirement prevailed. The Provincial suffrage requirement in this
period was generally fifty acres of land or L50 of personal property.[9]
Although this study encompasses a fifteen-year period from 1769 to 1784,
it appears that the Fair Play system functioned for about five years,
from 1773 to 1778. This is due to the fact that only "fourty
Improvements,"[10] meaning forty family settlements, existed in the area
by 1773, and that following the Great Runaway of 1778, the territory was
almost devoid of settlers. The void was filled, however, when settlers
began returning toward the end of the Revolution and following the
accession of the territory in the second Stanwix Treaty, in 1784. Thus,
for all practical purposes, the functioning of the Fair Play system was
confined to this more limited time. Furthermore, the system was
supplemented in 1776 by the introduction of the Committee of Safety, and
later that year by the Council of Safety.[11]
As is indicated in Smith's _Laws_, annual meetings were held to select
the governing tribunal of three for the ensuing year. Generally convened
at some readily accessible place, these sessions were presumably held in
the open or at one of the frontier forts erected in the area: Fort
Antes, across the river from Jersey Shore; or Fort Horn, located on the
south side of the Susquehanna about eight miles west of Jersey Shore.
There were frontier forts in the vicinity of the present Muncy--Fort
Muncy--and Lock Haven--Fort Reed; but Fort Muncy was some twenty-odd
miles east of the Fair Play territory and Fort Reed was beyond the Great
Island at its western extremity. As a result, these outposts were
unlikely meeting places for the tribunal or for its election.[12]
Unfortunately, there is no recorded evidence of a specific meeting of
the Fair Play men.
The authority of the Fair Play tribunal extended across the entire
territory from Lycoming Creek to the Great Island on the north side of
the West Branch of the Susquehanna. However, most of the disputed cases,
which can be verified by subsequent court reviews in either
Northumberland or Lycoming counties, seem to have involved land claims
in the area between Lycoming and Pine creeks. The tribunal accepted or
rejected claims for settlement in the area and decided boundary
questions and other controversies among settlers.[13] As to a specific
code of laws, there is none of record. However, the cases subsequently
reviewed in the established county courts refer to some of their regular
practices. For example, any man who left his improvement for six weeks
without leaving someone to continue it, lost his right to the
improvement;[14] any man who went into the army could count on the Fair
Play men (the tribunal) to protect his property;[15] any man who sought
land in the territory was obliged to obtain not only the approval of the
Fair Play men but also of his nearest potential neighbors;[16] and the
summary process of ejectment which the Fair Play men exercised was real
and certain and sometimes supported by the militia.[17]
The specific membership of the Fair Play tribunal is rather difficult to
ascertain due to its failure to keep minutes of its proceedings and the
absence of any recorded code. However, as indicated earlier,[18] the
existence of the tribunal between the years 1773 and 1778, and its
actual composition in 1775 and 1776, have already been established from
the review of its decisions by the Circuit Court of Lycoming County.
Assuming the principle of rotation from a contemporary description,
some eighteen settlers held the positions of authority during the years
noted.[19] The cases reviewed reveal the names of five of these
eighteen. Recognizing the limitations of our twenty-eight per cent
sampling, however, it is interesting to note that the three major
national stocks are represented in this restricted sample. Furthermore,
as was mentioned previously,[20] the Scotch-Irish settlers, being in the
majority, enjoyed the majority representation on the tribunal. An
analysis of leadership in the territory, to be developed more fully
later, leads one to conclude that the Scotch-Irish, in the main, were
the political leaders of the area.[21]