settlers gathered at Fort Horn, above present McElhattan, pleading for
military support in their perilous position:
_To the Honourable the Supreame Executive Councill of the
Commonwealth of Pennsyllvania, in Lancaster;_
Wee, your humble petitioners, the Inhabitance of Bald Eagle
Township, on the West Branch of Susquehannah, Northumberland County,
&c., &c., humbly Sheweth: that, Wherease, wee are Driven By the
Indians from our habitations and obblidged to assemble ourselves
together for our Common Defence, have thought mete to acquaint you
with our Deplorable situation. Wee have for a month by past,
endeavoured to maintain our ground, with the loss of nearly fifty
murdered and made Captives, still Expecting relief from Coll.
Hunter; but wee are pursuaded that the Gentleman has done for us as
mutch as has layd in his power; we are at len[g]th surrounded with
great numbers on every side, and unless Our Honourable Councill Does
grant us some Assistance wee will Be obblidged to evaquete [_sic_]
this frontier; which will be great encouragement to the enemy, and
Bee very injurious to our Common Cause. We, therefore, humbly
request that you would grant us as many men as you may Judge
suficient to Defend four small Garrisons, and some amunition, and as
we are wery ill prowided with arms, we Beg that you would afford us
some of them; for particulars we refer to the Bearer, Robert
Fleming, Esq'r, and Begs leave to Conclude. Your humble petitioners,
as in Duty Bound, shall ever pray.
Sined by us:[33]
This petition was signed by some forty-seven settlers, including John
and Robert Fleming, Alexander Hamilton, and Samuel Horn. Unfortunately,
the much-needed assistance was not forthcoming, and Colonel Hunter soon
sent instructions from Fort Augusta for the evacuation of the valley.
This evacuation is, of course, the Great Runaway.[34] It is interesting
to note, however, that the bearer of this petition was Robert Fleming,
one of the regional leaders of the territory.
Although forced to leave the West Branch Valley, the Fair Play settlers
responded to Colonel Hunter's fervent plea to stay at Fort Augusta to
help in the defense of this last frontier. Their gallant stand on the
West Branch and their earnestly successful support of Fort Augusta, the
last frontier outpost in central Pennsylvania, protected the interior,
enabled the Continental Congress "to function in safety at a period when
its collapse would have meant total disaster to the American cause," and
provided a vivid demonstration of what a later president of the United
States would call "that last full measure of devotion."[35]
In the fall of 1778, following the earlier alliance with France, the
tide of the Revolution began to flow in favor of independence,
notwithstanding the fact that the Fair Play territory was now deserted.
But for two years previous, when the issue of independence had been in
grave doubt, the courageous pioneers of the West Branch stood their
ground in tiny garrisons at Fort Antes, Fort Horn, and Fort Reed,
resisting the attacking Indians at the insistence of their leaders, that
freedom might be preserved. Perhaps it is a little-known story, but the
fate of independence was in good hands with the Fair Play settlers of
the West Branch Valley, who fought to preserve it.
Towards the end of the Revolution the Fair Play settlers returned to the
territory, and a new problem arose, that of title claims or, more
particularly, the right of pre-emption. Still outside the bounds of the
Commonwealth and organized government, these frontier squatters
petitioned the Supreme Council for validation of their land claims.[36]
Two petitions, one in August, 1781, and the other in March, 1784, were
sent. Their claims were recognized by an act of the General Assembly
passed in May, 1785.[37] By this time, the land in question had been
opened for settlement by virtue of the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1784.
Needless to say, their petitions had been prompted in part by fear of
land speculators who were attempting to buy up their lands through the
Land Office in Philadelphia. The prominence of local leaders, such as
Alexander Hamilton and John Walker, is once again noted in these
petitions. These petitions achieved notable results in that the right of
pre-emption for the West Branch squatters was recognized by the
Commonwealth long before the national government endorsed the principle.
Furthermore, the validation of these claims beyond the purchase line of
the Stanwix Treaty of 1768 provided the first legal recognition of
pre-emption in the State of Pennsylvania.
Unsuccessful in maintaining their homes against the incursive Indians,
but successful in regaining them by right of pre-emption, the Fair Play
settlers were also vitally concerned with representative democracy.
Locally, on the county level, and in the Province and State, these
frontiersmen sought to make their wishes known, both to and through
their political leaders. How well they achieved these goals was
influenced by the number of persons whom they elected to both legal and
extra-legal offices at the various political levels.
The Fair Play settlers managed to send two of their associates to the
General Assembly in the decade after Lexington and Concord.[38] These
two, Robert Fleming and Frederick Antes, constituted a disproportionate
representation, when one considers the limited population of the Fair
Play community and the general under-representation of the frontier
counties at this period. In fact, a few hundred families in and around
the West Branch were surprisingly fortunate to have one of their number,
Robert Fleming, in the General Assembly when, following a petition from
the frontier counties in 1776, a new apportionment created an assembly
in which fifty-eight legislators represented Pennsylvania's 300,000
people.[39] However, the elections of both Fleming and Antes came after
the new constitution of 1776, in which each county was given six
representatives.[40] It can hardly be said that the West Branch Valley
lacked adequate representation in the councils of the State.
Furthermore, Frederick Antes was a delegate to that State Constitutional
Convention. This not only emphasizes the leadership role of Antes, but
also points up the good fortune of the Fair Play settlers in having one
of their community participate in the framing of the new State
government. Although the Fair Play settlers lived beyond the legal
limits of settlement, they were very much involved in its political
affairs.
Aside from the General Assembly and the Constitutional Convention, these
pioneers of the Northumberland County frontier placed three men on the
county bench, one of whom was presiding judge.[41] Fair Play men became
justices of fair play in the county courts.
Concerning other county offices, the key position of sheriff was held
continuously from 1779 to 1785 by members of the Fair Play
community.[42] Here again, it appears that the proper administration of
justice could be expected from Fair Play men.
Locally, the rotational system of the Fair Play tribunal and the
frequent changes in the composition of the Committee of Safety give rise
to the conclusion that political democracy, in the sense of active
participation in public office, was truly a characteristic of the Fair
Play territory. Nine different men served on the three-man Committee of
Safety from February of 1776 to February of 1777, three new members
being elected semi-annually. Except for the two or three years following
the Great Runaway, the three members of the Fair Play tribunal were
elected annually.
In conclusion, then, what can be said regarding the leadership of the
Fair Play settlers? Except for the dangers from Indian hostility, which
were compounded by the settlers' limited manpower, the leadership was
more than adequate, one might say eminently successful, in meeting the
needs of the frontier. It enacted law, interpreted it, and saw to it
that the law was carried out on every political level with which the
West Branch pioneers had contact. In short, it gave them a government
of, by, and for themselves. This was _real_ representation by spokesmen
of a small community, very different from _virtual_ representation in a
distant Parliament, from which their independence had now been
declared.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Edwin MacMinn, _On the Frontier with Colonel Antes_ (Camden, N. J.,
1900). This book is a mosaic of primary and secondary sources dealing
with the entire area, rather than a standard biographical treatment of
its particular subject.
[2] Merle Curti, _The Making of an American Community: A Case Study of
Democracy in a Frontier County_ (Stanford, 1959), pp. 417-441. This
entire fifteenth chapter is devoted to both a quantitative and
qualitative analysis of "leadership."
[3] Wealth, i.e., liquid assets, was not necessarily a criterion on this
agrarian frontier, where a man's assets were not easily convertible into
cash. Hence, property was the main economic source of value.
[4] The records of the first State and county officers are found in the
_Pennsylvania Archives_, Second Series, III, 768-772, and John Blair
Linn, _Annals of Buffalo Valley_ (Harrisburg, 1877), pp. 558-563. Some
data are also available in Linn, _History of Centre and Clinton
Counties_.
The tax listings were located in the _Pennsylvania Archives_, Third
Series, XIX, 437, 468, 557, and 618-622. Mrs. Russell also collected a
listing for the years 1774 to 1800 for Northumberland County. Court
records, pension claims, Meginness' _Otzinachson_ (1889) and _Frontier
Forts of Pennsylvania_ provided the remaining data.
[5] MacMinn, _On the Frontier with Colonel Antes_, p. 19.
[6] _Ibid._, pp. 20-21. MacMinn also calls the senior Antes the father
of the Unity Conferences of Christian Endeavor and presents a copy of a
letter written on Dec. 17, 1741, calling for a New Year's Day meeting of
Christians in Germantown in 1742 in support of this statement. Of his
minor judicial role, MacMinn offers this account published in
Christopher Saur's _Pensylvanische Berichte_ for May 16, 1756: "Were
such magistrates more numerous, the poor would not have cause to
complain and to weep over gross injustices which they have to suffer
because persons are respected."
[7] _Ibid._, p. 248.
[8] Meginness, _Otzinachson_ (1889), p. 484. _See also_, MacMinn, _On
the Frontier with Colonel Antes_, p. 324.
[9] MacMinn, _On the Frontier with Colonel Antes_, pp. 316, 413; and
_Pennsylvania Archives_, Second Series, III, p. 769.
[10] Linn, _History of Centre and Clinton Counties_, p. 472.
[11] "Eleanor Coldren's Deposition," pp. 220-222.
[12] Linn, _Annals of the Buffalo Valley_, p. 95; and Meginness,
_Otzinachson_ (1889), p. 473.
[13] MacMinn, _On the Frontier with Colonel Antes_, p. 316.
[14] Linn, _History of Centre and Clinton Counties_, p. 473.
[15] _Pennsylvania Archives_, Second Series, III, 770.
[16] MacMinn, _On the Frontier with Colonel Antes_, pp. 416-420. See
also Alex. Patterson to John Dickinson (October 28, 1783) in the Zebulon
Butler Papers, Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, Wilkes-Barre,
Pa. Patterson, speaking of Antes' failure to arrest Zebulon Butler, said
of Antes: "The Sheriff has not done his duty nor do I believe he intends
it being. A party man among which I am sorry to see so little principels
of humanity or honnor, Men who wish for popularity at the Expense of the
Propperty and perhaps blood of their fellow Citizens...."
[17] _Pennsylvania Archives_, Second Series, III, 768-772, and MacMinn,
_On the Frontier with Colonel Antes_, pp. 330, 395, and 413.
[18] _Pennsylvania Archives_, Second Series, III, 769.
[19] _Ibid._, p. 771.
[20] _Ibid._, pp. 769, 771; Linn, _History of Centre and Clinton
Counties_, pp. 473-474; and _Colonial Records_, XI, 367.
[21] _Pennsylvania Archives_, Third Series, XIX, 618.
[22] MacMinn, _On the Frontier with Colonel Antes_, pp. 12 and 420.
[23] _Pennsylvania Archives_, Third Series, XIX, 437.
[24] _Colonial Records_, XII. 137.
[25] _Fithian: Journal_, p. 81.
[26] Linn, _History of Centre and Clinton Counties_, p. 473. The full
account of Hamilton's military service is given in the Hamilton Pension
Papers in the Wagner Collection, Muncy Historical Society. Hamilton had
also been a member of the group commissioned to lay out a road from Bald
Eagle Creek to Fort Augusta. Linn, _History_, p. 472.
[27] _Ibid._, p. 474, and Meginness, _Otzinachson_ (1889), p. 474.
[28] _Pennsylvania Archives_, Second Series, III, 770.
[29] Linn, _History of Centre and Clinton Counties_, p. 472.
[30] _Ibid._, p. 473.
[31] _Ibid._; Yeates, _Pennsylvania Reports_, I, 498; and Russell,
"Signers of the Pine Creek Declaration of Independence," p. 4.
[32] Becker, _Beginnings of the American People_, p. 180.
[33] _Pennsylvania Archives_, Second Series, III, pp. 217-218. The
petition was dated June 21, 1778. The situation had been further
complicated by the enlistment the previous summer of many of the
able-bodied men to aid Washington in Cambridge, Massachusetts. These
men, "early in the service of their Country from the unpurchased land on
the West Branch of the River Susquehanna," deprived the valley of its
available manpower.
[34] _See_ Chapter Two for a fuller description of the Great Runaway.
[35] Helen Herritt Russell, "The Great Runaway of 1778," _The Journal of
the Lycoming Historical Society_, II, No. 4 (1961), 3-10. This article
contains a few additions to an article by the same name by Mrs. Russell
published in _The Northumberland County Historical Society Proceedings
and Addresses_, XXIII (1960), 1-16.
[36] _Pennsylvania Archives_, Second Series, III, 518-522.
[37] Smith, _Laws_, II, 195.
[38] Robert Fleming and Frederick Antes, as previously noted, had been
elected in 1777 and 1784, respectively.
[39] Dunaway, _History of Pennsylvania_, pp. 176, 196. Of these
fifty-eight, twenty-eight came from the frontier counties of York,
Berks, Bedford, Cumberland, and Northumberland.
[40] Wallace, _Pennsylvania: Seed of a Nation_, pp. 105-106.
[41] As previously noted, Henry Antes had been appointed judge of the
Court of Quarter Sessions in 1775, and Frederick Antes and Fleming had
been elected in 1780 and 1785, respectively. Frederick Antes was
president judge.
[42] _Pennsylvania Archives_, Second Series, III, 770.
CHAPTER SEVEN
_Democracy on the Pennsylvania Frontier_
One of the most often used and least understood words in the American
lexicon is the term "democracy." In the colonial period, it was seldom
used, except in denunciation. However, properly defined, it can help us
to evaluate the Fair Play settlers in some understandable context.
Etymologically stemming from two Greek words, _demos_, meaning "the
people," and _kratos_, meaning "authority," democracy means "authority
in the people" or, we can say, "self-determination." By
self-determination is meant the right of the people to decide their own
political, economic, and social institutions.
Self-determination in its basic, or political, context can best be
explained through James Bryce's definition of a democracy. Lord Bryce
said:
The word Democracy has been used ever since the time of Herodotus to
denote that form of government in which the ruling power of a State
is legally vested, not in any particular class or classes, but in
the members of the community as a whole.[1]
Analyzing the key phrases in Bryce's statement, we can best clarify the
meaning of political self-determination.
(1) "The ruling power of a State." Self-determination, as it is employed
here, concerns the right of the people of Fair Play society to determine
their own political institutions. Fair Play society did not constitute a
state, but it was a political community, and in that sense Bryce's
definition applies. Living outside the legal limit of settlement of
Province and Commonwealth, these people could not obtain legal authority
for their own rule, so, following the prevalent theory of the social
compact, they formed their own government. The result was the annual
election, by the people, of the Fair Play tribunal, the source of final
authority in the Fair Play territory.
(2) "Is legally vested." Fair Play society was actually illegal; that is
to say, the settlements were made in violation of the laws of the
Province. However, the extra-legal government which was formed was
created by, and responsive to, the popular will. Since the actual
authority for rule was vested in the people, it can be considered as
legal for the Fair Play community.
(3) "In the members of the community." The members of the Fair Play
community, as previously noted, were not strictly resident within the
geographic confines of the Fair Play territory. Communities, it has been
said, are total ways of life, complexes Of behavior composed of all the
institutions necessary to carry on a complete life, formed into a
working whole.[2] Self-determination, as it is used here, suggests that
the community as a whole participates in the decision-making process.
(4) "Not in any particular class or classes, but in the members of the
community as a whole." Bryce's definition here extends the
interpretation of "the members of the community." Obviously, if any
particular class or classes were vested with the final political
authority, then the people as a whole, that is, the Fair Play community,
would not exercise self-determination.
The concept of self-determination, carried to an economic context,
suggests that the people of the Fair Play community had the right to
determine their own economic institutions. This means that they had the
right to choose their own portion of land, subject, of course, to the
will of the existing community, and to utilize it according to their own
needs and interests. This meant that no undemocratic and feudalistic
practices, such as primogeniture and entail, could exist. Granted that
this is self-determination rather broadly interpreted in an economic
context, the question is whether or not these people had the right to
choose their own plot of ground and work it as they saw fit, unhampered
by any preordained system of discrimination or restriction.
Socially, the idea of self-determination is applied to evaluate the
religious institutions, the class structure, and the value system. The
application concerns, once again, the authority of the people to
determine their own social patterns. It questions whether or not any
Fair Play settler could worship according to the dictates of his own
conscience. It evaluates the class structure to ascertain whether or not
a superimposed caste system ordered the class structure of Fair Play
society, rather than a community-determined system in which choice and
opportunity provided flexibility and mobility. And finally, it considers
whether or not the values of the Fair Play settlers were inculcated by
some internal clique or external force, rather than being developed by
the members of the community themselves.
Did democracy exist on this Pennsylvania frontier? Was the Fair Play
system marked by real representation and popular control? These
questions must be answered before any judgment can be made concerning
political democracy in the West Branch Valley.
Was there equality of economic opportunity on this farmers' frontier?
Was land available to all who sought it, and on equal terms? These
problems need to be considered before we can attach the label
"democratic" on the economic life of the Fair Play settlers.
If democracy prizes diversity, as some claim, were the diverse elements
of Fair Play society equally recognized?[3] Was the class structure open
or closed, mobile or fixed? Did the mixed national stocks enjoy
religious freedom? One needs to inquire into each of these areas prior
to a final evaluation of Fair Play society.
A useful tool for evaluating political democracy can be found in Ranney
and Kendall's _Democracy and the American Party System_.[4] It suggests
the use of popular sovereignty, political equality, popular
consultation, and majority rule as criteria for democracy. Accepting
these criteria as basic principles of democracy, we can begin to analyze
the democratic character of the Fair Play system.
A political system based upon popular sovereignty is one in which the
final authority to rule is vested in the people. The question of who the
people are is still before us today. In the fullest sense, popular
sovereignty means rule by all the people, but in colonial America the
"people" was a much more qualified term. It generally signified white,
Protestant, adult males who were property owners. In the Fair Play
territory, the ruling "people" were "the whole body" of adult male
settlers who annually elected their governing tribunal and participated
in the decisions of its "court."[5] Lacking an established church, or
any church for that matter, and possessing property lying beyond legal
limits of settlement, the Fair Play settlers could not have enforced
religious or property qualifications for voting, even if they had so
desired, and there is no evidence to indicate that they did.
Furthermore, the frequency of elections, which were held annually, and
the principle of rotating the offices among the settlers tended to
emphasize the sovereignty of the people in this part of the West Branch
Valley. The right of suffrage, it is true, had not been extended to
women, but this was the rule throughout colonial America. Popular
sovereignty, in its qualified eighteenth-century sense, was a basic
characteristic of the political democracy which existed on this
frontier.
Political equality, that is "one man, one vote," was practiced by the
pioneers of the West Branch. There was no additional vote given to the
large property owners; in fact, as the tax lists indicate, there were no
large property owners within the geographic limits of the Fair Play
territory. Thus, each man, rather than a small ruling oligarchy, had the
opportunity to participate in the decision-making process of the Fair
Play community.
In a democratic society, the people must be consulted by the policy
makers prior to their exercise of the power of decision. Among the Fair
Play settlers this basically democratic principle was vividly
demonstrated in the case of disputed land titles, the primary concern of
the Fair Play men. In both Eleanor Coldren's deposition in behalf of her
deceased husband and in the Huff-Latcha case, it was established that
the unanimous consent of the prospective neighbors had to be obtained
before a favorable decision was rendered in behalf of the land
claimants.[6] The frequency of elections, combined with the ease and
regularity of assembly, provided the settlers with the opportunity to
become acquainted with the circumstances of their problems. Here again,
the paucity of specific data prompts us to some speculation regarding
the nature and location of these meetings. However, it must be added,
the Hamilton pension papers and the petitions to the Supreme Council in
Philadelphia refer specifically to meetings at Fort Horn and Fort
Antes.[7] Direct representation based upon popular consultation was a
distinct trait of the political democracy in the Fair Play territory.