The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 Part 11

[5] Leyburn, _The Scotch-Irish_, p. 262.

[6] _Fithian: Journal_ (1775) and _Journal of William Colbert_ (1792-1794). These journals of the first regularly a.s.signed itinerant pastors, Presbyterian and Methodist, to the West Branch Valley, contain numerous references concerning the personal character and morality of the settlers. In the Hamilton Papers of the Wagner Collection of Revolutionary War pension claimants, p. 11, Mrs. Hamilton writes to the Honorable George C. Whiting, Commissioner of Pensions, on Dec. 16, 1858: "I believe they were people of clear sound mind, just, upright, morrall, religious, and friendly to all. I should say they came nearest to keeping the commandment, love your nabour as yourself, then any people I ever lived among."

[7] Leyburn, _The Scotch-Irish_, p. 269.

[8] Helen Herritt Russell, "The Doc.u.mented Story of the Fair Play Men and Their Government," _The Northumberland County Historical Society Proceedings and Addresses_, XXII (1958), 16-43. Mrs. Russell, whose genealogical studies were the basis of Chart 1 in Chapter Two, notes 24 marriages among the 80 names, 9 of which were intermarriages of different national stocks. Of the 24 marriages, 9 were between Scotch-Irish couples. Intermarriages produced 5 English-Scotch-Irish couples, 2 German-Scotch-Irish, 1 Welsh-Scotch-Irish, and 1 German-English. The intermarriages appear to follow the national stock percentages in the population. This would suggest that the intermarriages were a matter of choice rather than of necessity.

[9] Dunaway, _The Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania_, p. 198.

[10] _Journal of William Colbert_ (1792-1794). This entry for Thursday, Sept. 5, 1793, is from a typescript belonging to Dr. Charles F.

Berkheimer, of Williamsport. The original is in Chicago at the Garrett Biblical Seminary.

[11] Here again, Fithian, Colbert, and Mr. Davy all mention the friendly reception which was theirs on this frontier. Davy, in an entry for Oct.

10, 1794, p. 265, says, "In the Winter Sleighs are in general use on the Rivers & on Land & it is time of Visiting & Jollity throughout the Country."

[12] _Journal of William Colbert_, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 1792. Here the Reverend Colbert refers to the existence of a cla.s.s in religion among the group of Presbyterians, although the prospects appear none too favorable. In fact, he says, "I had no desire to meet the cla.s.s, so disordered are they, therefore omitted it." Quarterly meetings of Methodists were also held in the West Branch Valley, as Colbert notes in his journal for Sat.u.r.day, Sept. 15, 1792, and Sat.u.r.day, Sept. 7, 1793.

In 1792, Colbert remarks that "Our Quarterly Meeting began at Joshua White's today." The following year he wrote that "brother Paynter and I have to hold a Quarterly meeting at Ammariah Sutton's at Lycommon." Each of these instances indicates the presence of some sort of voluntary religious a.s.sociation. However, it must be recalled that Fithian mentioned no such cla.s.ses or meetings extant during his visit in July of 1775.

[13] _Fithian: Journal_, pp. 80-81.

[14] _Journal of William Colbert_, Thursday, Oct. 17, 1793, and Sat.u.r.day, Aug. 18, 1792.

[15] _Ibid._, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 1793.

[16] Smith, _Laws_, II, 195.

[17] Muncy Historical Society, Wagner Collection, Hamilton Papers, p.

10.

[18] _Ibid._

[19] _See_ the Appearance Dockets Commencing in 1772 for Northumberland County and 1795 for Lycoming County.

[20] _Journal of William Colbert_, Monday, June 18, 1792.

[21] _Ibid._, Sat.u.r.day, Aug. 4, 1792: "Calvinist must certainly be the most d.a.m.nable doctrine upon the face of the globe." Sunday, July 29, 1792: "Here for telling the people they must live without sin, I so offended a Presbyterian, that he got up, called his wife and away he went." Sunday July 22, 1792: "... in the afternoon for the first time heard a Presbyterian at Pine Creek.... He is an able speaker but could not, but, Calvinistic like speak against sinless perfection." Monday, Aug. 20, 1792: "... rode to John Hamilton's in the afternoon. Here the unhappy souls [Presbyterian Fair Play settlers] that were joined together in society, I fear are going to ruin." Thursday, Oct. 17, 1793: "I went to John Hamilton's on the Bald Eagle Creek spoke a few words to a few people: I do not think that is worth the preachers while to stop here."

[22] F. B. Everett, "Early Presbyterianism along the West Branch of the Susquehanna River," _Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society_, XII (1927), 481. According to the Reverend Mr. Everett, whose article also appeared in the Montgomery _Mirror_ for Oct. 27, 1926, the Scotch-Irish, with the Anglicans, were the dogmatists of Pennsylvania.

The Quakers and Pietistic German sects were anti-dogmatic. Dogmatically adhering to his catechisms, the Scotch-Irishman "resented the aspersions cast upon dogma and creed." The frontier gave him freedom from the Quakers who still considered Presbyterians as those "who had burnt a Quaker in New England from the cart's tail, and had murdered other Quakers."

[23] "Mr. Davy's Diary," p. 259.

[24] Thomas J. Wertenbaker, _The First Americans, 1607-1690_ (New York, 1927). Wertenbaker's first chapter, "A New World Makes New Men,"

develops this thesis generally for the American colonial experience, and, as Turner said, those first colonies were the first frontier.

[25] Clark, "Pioneer Life in the New Purchase," pp. 28, 63. Clark notes that indentured servitude appeared in Muncy, where Samuel Wallis' great holdings made such service feasible. He also mentions Wallis' ownership of slaves, verified by the Quarter Session Docket of 1778. Wallis freed two Negro slaves, Zell and Chloe, posting a 30 bond that they would not become a charge on the township.

[26] Leyburn, _The Scotch-Irish_, p. 262. _See also_ Dunaway, _The Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania_, pp. 180-200.

[27] These "fringe area" partic.i.p.ants in Fair Play society actually resided, for the most part, in Provincial territory and hence enjoyed greater stability and more land.

[28] Calhoun, _A Social History of the American Family_, I, 207.

[29] _Ibid._

[30] Leyburn, _The Scotch-Irish_, p. 271. Leyburn points out that since the Scotch-Irish were never a "minority," in the sense that their values differed radically from the norms of their areas of settlement, they never suffered the normlessness which Durkheim calls anomie--the absence of clear standards to follow. As Leyburn states it,

Anomie was an experience unknown to the Scotch-Irishman, for he moved immediately upon arrival to a region where there was neither a settlement nor an established culture. He held land, knew independence, had manifold responsibilities from the very outset. He spoke the language of his neighbors to the East through whose communities he had pa.s.sed on his way to the frontier. Their inst.i.tutions and standards differed at only minor points from his own. The Scotch-Irish were not, in short, a "minority group" and needed no Immigrant Aid society to tide them over a period of maladjustment so that they might become a.s.similated in the American melting pot.

This, however, is not to suggest that minorities are necessarily anomic.

The Jews, for example, were always a cultural minority in Europe, yet they adhered intensely to their own cultural norms.

[31] Muncy Historical Society, Wagner Collection, Hamilton Papers, p.

10.

[32] J. E. Wright and Doris S. Corbett, _Pioneer Life in Western Pennsylvania_ (Pittsburgh, 1940), p. 142.

[33] _Ibid._ The existence of these "praying societies" is further substantiated in Colbert's _Journal_. During these services, lay persons gave exhortations or a.s.sisted Colbert in some fashion.

[34] _Fithian: Journal_, p. 76.

[35] Robert S. c.o.c.ks, _One Hundred and Fifty Years of Evangelism, The History of Northumberland Presbytery 1811-1961_ (n. p., 1961), p. 2.

[36] _Fithian: Journal_, pp. 80-81.

[37] Joseph Stevens, _History of the Presbytery of Northumberland, from Its Organization, in 1811, to May 1888_ (Williamsport, 1888), p. 38.

[38] _Ibid._, p. 18.

[39] c.o.c.ks, _One Hundred and Fifty Years of Evangelism_, p. 2.

[40] Guy S. Klett, "Scotch-Irish Presbyterian Pioneering Along the Susquehanna River," _Pennsylvania History_, XX (1953), p. 173.

[41] _Ibid._, p. 174.

[42] Linn, _History of Centre and Clinton Counties_, p. 520.

[43] Klett, "Scotch-Irish Presbyterian Pioneering," p. 175.

[44] _Journal of William Colbert_, Monday, June 18, 1792; and Robert Berger, "The Story of Baptist Beginnings in Lycoming County," _Now and Then_, XII (1960), 274-280. According to the Reverend Robert Berger, of Hughesville, a few Baptist settlers came into Lycoming County from New Jersey, but were soon driven out by the Indians. Apparently, the Philadelphia Baptist a.s.sociation sent missionaries to the area in 1775 and 1778. However, not until the a.s.sociation commissioned Elders Patton, Clingan, and Vaughn in 1792 did any extensive Baptist preaching take place in this region. They were sent out for three months on the Juniata and the West Branch. The Loyalsock Baptist Church, established in 1822, is the first church.

[45] Dietmar Rothermund, _The Layman's Progress: Religious and Political Experience in Colonial Pennsylvania 1740-1770_ (Philadelphia, 1961), p.

142. As Rothermund describes it, "The Pilgrim's progress had turned into the layman's emanc.i.p.ation, and finally into the citizen's revolution"

(p. 137). He calls "the political maturity which followed the era of religious emanc.i.p.ation ... America's real revolutionary heritage" (p.

138).

[46] _Ibid._, p. 137. It must first be recognized that American Presbyterianism differed from that of Scotland particularly with regard to local autonomy. The Presbyterian Church, like the United States under the Const.i.tution of 1787, was federal in its governmental structure, and the autonomy of the local religious inst.i.tutions was later carried into politics. Leyburn, _The Scotch-Irish_, p. 313, emphasizes the fact that the Scotch-Irishman's church had accustomed him to belief in government by the consent of the governed, in representative and republican inst.i.tutions. The relationship between the church covenant and the social compact is quite direct. If men can bind themselves together to form a church, then it seems quite logical that they can bind themselves together to form a government. Fair Play democracy was simply political Presbyterianism. Its impact has been noted by a number of historians.

Dunaway, _The Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania_, p. 135, claims that "The actual means by which Pennsylvania was transformed from a proprietary province into an American commonwealth was the new political organization developed by the Scotch-Irish in alliance with the eastern radical leaders of the continental Revolutionary movement. This extra-legal organization, consisting of the committee of safety, the provincial and county committees of correspondence, and the provincial conventions, supplanted the regular provincial government by absorbing its functions." Becker, _Beginning of the American People_, p. 180, calls the Scotch-Irish a people "whose religion confirmed them in a democratic habit of mind."