which the excerpt from this source is quoted verbatim.
[20] _Supra_, p. 33.
[21] _Infra_, Chapter Six. The question of leadership in conjunction
with the problems of this frontier is discussed in Chapter Six.
[22] The Appearance Dockets and Files were checked for Northumberland
County from 1784 to 1795 and for Lycoming County from 1795 to 1801.
These records, obtained in the offices of the respective prothonotaries,
produced thirty-seven cases in Northumberland and twenty-two in Lycoming
County dealing with former Fair Play settlers. Unfortunately, only four
were reviews of actual Fair Play decisions.
[23] Northumberland County originated in 1772 and Lycoming County in
1795. Clinton County was not created until 1839.
[24] Meginness, _Otzinachson_ (Philadelphia, 1857), p. 172.
[25] The cases referred to here are: _Hughes_ vs. _Dougherty_, _Huff_
vs. _Satcha_, and _Grier_ vs. _Tharpe_. They were located in the
Appearance Dockets of Lycoming and Northumberland counties in the
respective prothonotaries' offices. _Hughes_ vs. _Dougherty_ appears in
the Northumberland County Docket for November, 1783, to August, 1786, in
the February term of the Court of Common Pleas, file 42. Both the Huff
and Grier cases were found in the Lycoming County Docket No. 2,
commencing 1797, court terms and file numbers indicated as follows:
_Huff_ vs. _Satcha_, February, 1799, #2, and _Grier_ vs. _Tharpe_, May,
1800, #41. A partial deposition by Eleanor Coldren, _Now and Then_, XII
(1959), 220-222, was also employed. Although the case appears to be
_Dewitt_ vs. _Dunn_, I could not locate it in the Appearance Dockets.
Depositions taken in the Huff and Grier cases were published in Linn,
"Indian Land and Its Fair-Play Settlers," pp. 422-424.
[26] Leyburn, _The Scotch-Irish_, p. 205.
[27] Jasper Yeates, _Pennsylvania Reports_, I (Philadelphia, 1817),
497-498.
[28] Smith, _Laws_, II, 195.
[29] Yeates, _Pennsylvania Reports_, I, 497-498.
[30] "Eleanor Coldren's Deposition," pp. 220-222.
[31] Linn, "Indian Land and Its Fair-Play Settlers," p. 422.
[32] _Ibid._
[33] _Ibid._
[34] _Ibid._
[35] Meginness, _Otzinachson_ (1889), p. 469.
[36] Now Linden, in Woodward Township, a few miles west of Williamsport.
[37] King refers here to the Great Runaway of 1778.
[38] Linn, "Indian Land and Its Fair-Play Settlers," p. 423-424.
[39] Meginness, _Otzinachson_ (1889), p. 470.
[40] _Ibid._, p. 471.
[41] D. S. Maynard, _Historical View of Clinton County_ (Lock Haven,
1875), pp. 207-208. Maynard has reprinted here some excerpts from John
Hamilton's "Early Times on the West Branch," which was published in the
Lock Haven _Republican_ in 1875. Unfortunately, recurrent floods
destroyed most of the newspaper files, and copies of this series are not
now available. John Hamilton was a third-generation descendant of
Alexander Hamilton, one of the original Fair Play settlers.
[42] Meginness, _Otzinachson_ (1857), p. 193.
[43] _Ibid._ An alleged copy of the declaration published in _A Picture
of Clinton County_ (Lock Haven, 1942), p. 38, is clearly spurious. The
language of this Pennsylvania Writers' project of the W.P.A. is
obviously twentieth-century, and it contains references to events which
had not yet occurred.
[44] _Fithian: Journal_, p. 72.
[45] Muncy Historical Society, Muncy, Pa., Wagner Collection, Anna
Jackson Hamilton to Hon. George C. Whiting, Commissioner of Pensions,
Dec. 16, 1858.
[46] _Ibid._, John Hamilton to Hon. George C. Whiting, Commissioner of
Pensions, May 27, 1859.
[47] The veracity of the witness is an important question here.
Meginness, in his 1857 edition, devotes a footnote, p. 168, to this
remarkable woman who was in full possession of her faculties at the
time. The Rev. John Grier, son-in-law of Mrs. Hamilton and brother of
Supreme Court Justice Robert C. Grier, wrote to President Buchanan on
Nov. 12, 1858, (Wagner Collection), stating that "Mrs. Hamilton is one
of the most intelligent in our community." Buchanan then wrote an
affidavit in support of Grier's statements to the Commissioner of
Pensions, Nov. 27, 1858, (Wagner Collection). Aside from the
declarations of Mrs. Hamilton and her son, the only other support, and
this is hearsay, is found in the account of an alleged conversation
between W. H. Sanderson and Robert Couvenhoven, the famed scout. W. H.
Sanderson, _Historical Reminiscences_, ed. Henry W. Shoemaker (Altoona,
1920), pp. 6-8. Here again, the fact that the reminiscences were not
recorded until some seventy years after the "chats" raises serious
doubts.
[48] _Pennsylvania Archives_, Fourth Series, III, 545.
[49] _Ibid._, p. 546.
[50] Linn, _History of Centre and Clinton Counties_, p. 473.
[51] _Ibid._
[52] _Ibid._
[53] _Ibid._
[54] _Ibid._ _See also_ John H. Carter, "The Committee of Safety of
Northumberland County," _The Northumberland County Historical Society
Proceedings and Addresses_, XVIII (1950), 44-45.
[55] _See_ map of the Fair Play territory in Chapter One.
[56] Linn, _History of Centre and Clinton Counties_, p. 469. _See also_,
Carter, "The Committee of Safety," pp. 33-45, for a full account of the
activities of the Committee. Carter notes that the county committee
consisted of thirty-three members, three from each of the eleven
townships chosen for a period of six months.
[57] _Ibid._, pp. 472-474.
CHAPTER FOUR
_The Farmers' Frontier_
The economy of the West Branch Valley was basically agrarian--a farmers'
frontier. The "new order of Americanism"[1] which arose on this frontier
was in part due to the cultural background of its inhabitants, the
knowledge and traditional values which they had brought with them. It
was further influenced by the frontier status of the region itself--an
area of virgin land in the earliest stages of development. And finally,
it was affected by the physical characteristics of the territory,
particularly the mountains which separated these settlers from the more
established settlements. It has been said that "many of the enduring
characteristics of the American creed and the American national
character originated in the way of life of the colonial farmer."[2] The
Fair Play territory was typical of this development.
The early pioneer, particularly if he was Scotch-Irish, generally came
into the area from the Cumberland Valley, the "seed-plot and nursery" of
the Scotch-Irish in America, the "original reservoir" of this leading
frontier stock, via the Great Shamokin Path.[3] Since there were no
roads, only Indian trails, the frontier traveler customarily followed
the Indian paths which had been cleared along the rivers and streams.
The Great Shamokin Path followed the Susquehanna from Shamokin (now
Sunbury) to the West Branch, then out along the West Branch to the
Allegheny Mountains.[4] Loading his wife and smaller children on a pack
horse, his scanty possessions on another horse, the prospective settler
drove a cow or two into the wild frontier at the rate of about twenty
miles a day.[5] This meant that a trip of approximately two days brought
him from Fort Augusta to the Fair Play country.
Indian paths were the primary means of ingress and egress, although
supplemented by the waterways which they paralleled. In addition to the
Great Shamokin Path, there were paths up Lycoming Creek (the Sheshequin
Path), and up Pine Creek, besides the path which followed Bald Eagle
Creek down into the Juniata Valley. These trails and adjoining water
routes were usually traveled on horseback or in canoes, depending upon
the route to be followed. However, the rivers and streams were more
often passages of departure than courses of entry.
Established roads, that is authorized public constructions, were not to
reach the West Branch region until 1775, although the Northumberland
County Court ordered such construction and reported on it at the October
term in 1772.[6] Appointments were made at the August session of 1775
"to view, and if they saw cause, to lay out a bridle road from the mouth
of Bald Eagle Creek to the town of Sunbury."[7] It was not until ten
years later that extensions of this road were authorized, carrying it
into the Nittany Valley and to Bald Eagle's Nest (near Milesburg, on the
Indian path from the Great Island to Ohio).[8]
Travel was usually on horseback or on foot. Canoes and flatboats, or
simply rafts, were used on the rivers and creeks where available.
Wagons, however, appeared after the construction of public roads and
were seen in the Great Runaway of 1778.[9]
The problem of communication between the frontier and the settled areas
was a difficult one compounded by the natural geographic barriers and
the fact that post and coach roads did not extend into this central
Pennsylvania region. As a result the inhabitants had to depend upon
occasional travelers, circuit riders, surveyors, and other Provincial
authorities who visited them infrequently. Otherwise, the meetings of
the Fair Play tribunal, irregular as they were, and the communications
from the county Committee of Safety were about the only sources of
information available. Of course, cabin-building, cornhusking, and
quilting parties provided ample opportunities for the dissemination of
strictly "local" news.
Newspapers were not introduced into the upper Susquehanna Valley until
around the turn of the century. The _Northumberland Gazette_ was
published in Sunbury in 1797 or 1798.[10] The first truly West Branch
paper was not circulated until 1802, when the _Lycoming Gazette_ was
first published in Williamsport.[11] On the eve of the Revolution there
were only seven newspapers available in the entire Province, none of
which circulated as far north as the Fair Play territory.[12] As a
matter of fact, there were only thirty-seven papers printed in all
thirteen colonies at the beginning of the Revolution.[13]
The Fair Play settler was an "outlaw," a squatter who came into this
central Pennsylvania wilderness with his family and without the benefit
of a land grant, and who literally hacked and carved out a living. The
natural elements, the savage natives, and the wild life all resisted
him; but he conquered them all, and the conquest gave him a feeling of
accomplishment which enhanced his independent spirit.
If the story of the Great Plains frontier can be told in terms of
railroads, barbed-wire fences, windmills, and six-shooters,[14] then the
cruder tale of the West Branch frontier can be told in terms of the
rifle, the axe, and the plow. The rifle, first and foremost as the
weapon of security, was the basic means of self-preservation in a wild
land where survival was a constant question.[15] The axe, which Theodore
Roosevelt later described as "a servant hardly standing second even to
the rifle,"[16] was the main implement of destruction and construction.
It was used for clearing the forest of the many trees which encroached
upon the acreage which the settler had staked out for himself, and for
cutting the logs which would provide the rude, one-room shelter the
pioneer constructed for himself and his family. The crude wooden plow
was the implement which made this frontiersman a farmer, although its
effectiveness was extremely limited. However, the soil was so fertile,
and the weeds so sparse, that scratching the earth and scattering seeds
produced a crop.[17]
A contemporary description of squatter settlements in Muncy Hills, some
twenty-odd miles east of the Fair Play territory, but in the West Branch
Valley, gives a vivid picture of the nature of these early
establishments:
They came from no Body enquires where, or how, but generally with
Families, fix on any Spot in the Wood that pleases them. Cut down
some trees & make up a Log Hut in a Day, clear away the underweed &
girdle.... The Trees they have no use for if cut down after their
Hut is made. They dig up & harrow the Ground, plant Potatoes, a Crop
which they get out in three Months, sow Corn, etc., (& having sown
in peace by the Law of the Land they are secured in reaping in
peace) & continue at Work without ever enquiring whose the Land is,
until the Proprietor himself disturbs & drives them off with
Difficulty.[18]
This experience was duplicated in the Fair Play territory where there
were no immediate neighbors whose permission was necessary for
settlement, or until a dispute was carried to the tribunal for
adjudication. This procedure was detailed in the last chapter.
Having selected a site, preferably on or near a stream, and obtained
approval from the Fair Play men and his neighbors, the prospective
settler was faced with the long and tedious work of clearing the land
for his home and farm. This was an extended effort for he could clear
only a few acres a year. In the meantime, his survival depended upon the
few provisions he brought with him--some grain for meal, a little flour,
and perhaps some salt pork and smoked meat. These supplies, combined
with the wild game and fish which abounded in the area, served until
such a time as crops could be produced. It was a rigorous life
complicated by the fact that the meager supplies often ran out before
the first crop was brought in. The first month's meals were too often
variations on the limited fare of water porridge and hulled corn, as
described by a later pioneer.[19]
Homes in the Fair Play territory were built "to _live_ in, and not for
_show_...."[20] The following description, by the grandson of one of the
original settlers, illustrates the cooperative nature of the enterprise,
in addition to giving a clear picture of the type of construction which
replaced the early lean-to shelter with which the frontiersman was first
acquainted:
Our buildings are made of hewn logs, on an average 24 feet long by
20 wide, sometimes a wall of stone, a foot or more above the level
of the earth, raised as a foundation; but in general, four large
stones are laid at the corners, and the building raised on _them_.
The house is covered sometimes with shingles, sometimes with
clapboards. [The latter required no laths, rafters, or nails, and
was put on in less time.] ... The ground logs being laid
saddle-shaped, on the upper edge, is cut in with an axe, at the
ends, as long as the logs are thick, then the end logs are raised
and a "notch" cut to fit the saddle. This is the only kind of tie or
binder they have; and when the building is raised as many rounds as
it is intended, the ribs are raised, on which a course of clapboards
is laid, butts resting on a "butting pole." A press pole is laid on
the clapboards immediately over the ribs to keep them from shifting
by the wind, and the pole is kept to its berth by stay blocks,
resting in the first course against the butting-pole. The logs are
run upon the building on skids by the help of wooden forks. The most
experienced "axe-man" are placed on the buildings as "cornermen;"
the rest of the company are on the ground to carry the logs and run
them up.[21]
In this fashion, the frontier cabin was raised and covered in a single
day, without a mason, without a pound of iron, and with nothing but dirt
for flooring. The doors and windows were subsequently cut out of the
structure to suit the tastes of its occupants.
In this one-room cabin lived the frontier settler and his family, who
might be joined by guests. Small wonder, then, that additions to this
construction took on such significance that they were items of mention
in later wills.[22]
Once having cleared a reasonable portion of his property, raised his
cabin, and scratched out an existence for his first few months of
occupation, the pioneer was now ready to get down to the business of
farming. Working around the stumps which cluttered his improvement, the
frontier farmer planted his main crops, which were, of course, the food
grains--wheat, rye, with oats, barley, and corn, and buckwheat and corn
for the livestock. Some indication of the planting and harvesting
seasons can be seen from this account:
I find Wheat is sown here in the Fall (beging. of Septr.) Clover &
timothy Grass is generally sown with it. The Wheat is cut in June or
beginning of July after which the Grass grows very rapidly & always
affords two Crops. Where Grass has not been sown they harrow the
Ground well where the Wheat is taken off & sow Buck Wheat which
ripens by the beginning & through September is excellent food for
Poultry & Cattle & makes good Cakes.[23]
The amazing fertility of the soil, as noted by more than one journalist,
eased the difficulties of the crude wooden implements which were the
farmer's tools. Reference is made to "one [who] plowed the same spot ...
for eight years ... [taking] double Crops without giving it an Ounce of
Manure."[24] Scientific farming had not yet come to the West Branch
Valley, although the Philadelphia area had been awakened to its
possibilities through the publications of Franklin's American
Philosophical Society.
Fertile soil was practically essential when one considers the crude
implements with which the frontier farmer carried on his hazardous
vocation. In addition to the crude wooden plow, which we have already
mentioned, the agrarian pioneer of the West Branch possessed a
long-bladed sickle, a homemade rake, a homemade hay fork, and a grain
shovel.[25] All of these items were made of wood and were of the crudest
sort.[26] As time went on, he added a few tools of his own invention,
but these, and his sturdy curved-handled axe, constituted the essential
instruments of the farmer's craft.
July was the month of harvest for the mainly "subsistence" farmers
scattered along the West Branch. The uncertainties of the weather and
the number of acres planted had some influence upon the harvesting, so
that it was not unusual to see the wheat still swaying in the warm
summer breezes in the last week of July. However, if possible, the grain
was generally cut the first part of the month in order that buckwheat,
or other fodder, might be sown and harvested in the fall.
Harvesttime was a cooperative enterprise and whole families joined in
"bringing in the sheaves." The grain had to be cut and raked into piles,
and the piles bundled into shocks tied together with stalks of the grain
itself. This took "hands" and the frontier family was generally the only
labor force available. In time, however, field work was confined to the
men of the family among the Scotch-Irish, who attached social
significance to the type of work done by their women.
Fithian's _Journal_ reveals, however, that class-consciousness was not
yet apparent in the division of labor on this frontier. On two occasions
he describes daughters of leading families engaged in other than
household tasks. Arriving at the home of Squire Fleming, with whom he
was to stay for a week, Fithian notes on July 25, 1775, that Betsey
Fleming, his host's daughter, "was milking."[27] The very next day, upon
visiting the Squire's brother, who had "two fine Daughter's," this
Presbyterian journalist found "One of them reaping."[28] If Leyburn's
comment that social status among the Scotch-Irish depended in part upon
the work done by the women of the family, then these examples attest to
the fact that "status" was a luxury which the Fair Play settlers could
not yet afford.[29]
Threshing was either done by hand with flails, or, if the family had a
cow or two (and the tax lists indicate that they did), the grain was
separated by driving the livestock around and around over the unbundled
straw. Finally, the chaff was removed by throwing the grain into the air
while the breeze was flowing. The grain was then collected and readied
for milling.
Gristmills were available in the West Branch Valley almost from the
outset of settlement due to the many fine streams which flowed through
the territory. As a result, few farmers had to travel more than five
miles, generally on horseback, to carry their bags of grain to the mill.
If the farmer had no horse, he had to carry his sack of grain on his
shoulder. If the settler lived on or near a stream, he put his sacks of
grain in a canoe and paddled downstream to the nearest mill. In the
early days before the mills, the grain was pounded into meal by using a
heavy pestle and a hollowed-out stump, a crude mortar which served the
purpose.
In time, the gristmill owners also operated distilleries, converting the
pioneer's wheat, rye, and barley into spirited beverages which were
freely imbibed along this and other frontiers. By the time of the
Revolution, distilling was so common as to cause the Committee of Safety
to take action to conserve the grain.[30] "Home brew," however, was
quite the custom, and it was not long before most farmers operated their
own stills.
Self-sufficiency was both a characteristic and a necessity among these
Scotch-Irish, English, and German settlers of central Pennsylvania.
Bringing their agrarian traditions with them from the "old country,"
where they had operated small farms, they were bound to a "subsistence
farming" existence by the inaccessibility of markets to the frontier.
One diarist found this conducive to a "perfect Independence" which made
a "Market to them, almost unnecessary."[31] This economic independence
carried over into frontier manufacturing, if it can be called that,
because the industry, except for the gristmills and their distilleries,
was strictly domestic.
It has often been said that the frontier farmer was a "jack-of-all
trades," and the West Branch settler of the Fair Play territory was a
typical example. With no market of skilled labor, or any other market
for that matter,[32] he was his own carpenter, cooper, shoe-maker,
tailor, and blacksmith. Whatever he wanted or needed had to be made in
his own home. Thus, frontier industry was of the handicraft or domestic
type, with tasks apportioned among the various members of the family in
accordance with their sex and talent. It was truly a "complete little
world" in which the pioneer family supplied its every demand by its own
efforts.[33]
Although the role of the women was to take on status significance as the
frontier areas became more stable, in the earlier years of settlement
their tasks were extensive and varied. Though they were busy with
household duties such as churning butter, making soap, pouring candles,
quilting, and weaving cloth for the family's clothing, it was not
uncommon for the women to join the men in the field at harvesttime. The
domesticity of the American housewife may be one impact on American life
made by the Germans.[34]
The children, too, were important persons in the economic life of the
frontier family. Their labors lightened the load for both father and
mother. With no available labor market from which to draw farm hands and
household help, it was both necessary and useful to give the boys and
girls a vocational apprenticeship in farming or homemaking. The girls'
responsibilities were usually, although not exclusively, related to the
hearth; the efforts of the boys were generally confined to the field and
the implements employed there, although they did service too as
household handymen, hauling wood, making fires, and the like.[35]
In addition to their farming and domestic industry, the other economic
activities of these agrarian pioneers included the care of their
livestock and the exploitation of the available natural resources in
their subsistence pattern of living. The tax lists for Northumberland
County indicate the possession of two or three horses and a like number
of cows for each head of a household.[36] There were also "various
Breeds of Hogs" although they were not listed by the tax assessor.[37]
Mr. Davy's comment that "Sheep are not well understood ... often
destroyed by the Wolves ... few ... except [those] of good Capital keep
them" may explain their absence from these same assessments.[38]