The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 Part 4

Finally, the purchase of the remaining Indian lands in Pennsylvania (except for the small corner of the Erie Triangle) was made on October 3, 1784, in a second Stanwix Treaty. This accession ended the Pennsylvania boundary dispute with the Six Nations; and it also ended the need for any extra-legal system of government in the West Branch Valley, for this new treaty encompa.s.sed the Fair Play territory.[18]

However, this treaty raised the troublesome Tiadaghton question once again, a question only partly resolved by the Legislature's designation of Lycoming Creek as the Tiadaghton and the recognition of the squatters' right of pre-emption to their settlements along the West Branch of the Susquehanna.[19] The land office was opened for the sale of this purchase July 1, 1785; by 1786 fifty heads of families were listed for State taxes in Northumberland County.[20] Approximately fifty per cent of these taxables had been in the area earlier.

Perhaps the only significant nationality trend to be noted in this important sequence of events is the tenacity of the Scotch-Irish and the subsequent increase of English and German settlers following this last "New Purchase."[21] Over half of the taxables in Pine Creek Township, the new designation for much of the Fair Play territory after it became an official part of the Province, were Scotch-Irish. As a result, these Scots from the north of Ireland continued to maintain their position of leadership even after the area was included in the Commonwealth.

The reasons for migrating to the West Branch Valley in this fifteen-year period from 1769 to 1784 were varied and numerous. For the most part, the various nationality groups which emigrated from Europe came for economic opportunity and because of religious and political persecutions. Their movement to the frontier regions was prompted by similar problems. In fact, much the same as the earlier settlers of Jamestown and Plymouth, the squatters of the West Branch Valley came for gain and for G.o.d. Furthermore, the promise of Penn's "Holy Experiment,"

in which men of diverse backgrounds could live together peacefully in religious freedom and political equality, encouraged them to come to Pennsylvania. However, once the dominant group of the Fair Play frontier, the Scotch-Irish, arrived in Pennsylvania, they found themselves unsuited to the settled areas. The natural enemy of the English, who had oppressed them at home, these settlers soon found themselves repeating the Old World conflicts. In addition, the German Pietists caused them further embarra.s.sment in their new homes. Their Calvinism, fierce political independence, and earnest desire for land and opportunity soon made them _personae non gratae_ in the established areas. Hence, they migrated to the frontier areas and even beyond the limits of Provincial interference and control.[22]

The paucity of population data makes impossible any extensive a.n.a.lysis of the stability and mobility of the Fair Play settlers. However, the tax lists, both in the published archives and in the files of the county commissioners in Northumberland County, offer limited evidence for the early years, though they provide ample data for the years after 1773.

Prior to the Great Runaway in 1778, tax lists are available for the entire county of Northumberland; the lists simply indicate the taxable's township, acreage, and tax. Records in the Northumberland County courthouse give the a.s.sessments for 1773, 1774, 1776, and 1778.

Due to the fact that the Fair Play territory was outside the Provincial limits until after the purchase of Fort Stanwix in 1784, the a.s.sessment lists give only those persons residing within Northumberland County. As a result, there were only six to twelve settlers who a.s.sociated with the Fair Play men who were included in the lists for 1773-1778. Chart 4 indicates the names, national origins, and years listed for those settlers.

CHART 4

Fair Play Settlers on the Tax Rolls 1773-1778.[23]

Name National Origin 1773 1774 1776 1778 ============================================================== James Alexander Scotch-Irish x x George Calhoune Scotch-Irish x x x x Cleary Campbell Scotch-Irish x William Campbell, Jr. Scotch-Irish x x x x William Campbell, Jr. Scotch-Irish x x John Clark English x Thomas Forster English x x x x James Irwin Scotch-Irish x x x x John Jamison English x Isaiah Jones Welsh x Robert King German x x x John Price Welsh x x --- --- --- --- Totals 6 8 7 7 --------------------------------------------------------------

From these limited data one obviously concludes that the Scotch-Irish 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 a.s.sessments for 1786, more than half of whom had been in the region before.

Any effort to a.n.a.lyze 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 a.s.sessed 27 29 34 40 68 Number appearing on previous a.s.sessments 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 a.s.sessments 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 a.s.sessments 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.

Pet.i.tions 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 pet.i.tion in June of 1778, and pet.i.tions asking recognition of pre-emption rights in 1781 and 1784.[27] The signatures on the pet.i.tions range in number from thirty-nine to fifty-one, and at least twenty-four of these settlers signed two or more of these doc.u.ments. The very nature of these pet.i.tions, particularly the later ones, indicates the tremendous desire on the part of these st.u.r.dy 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 a.n.a.lysis 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 inst.i.tutions 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 a.s.sume 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 inst.i.tutions. 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 "n.o.blest 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 Doc.u.mented 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 Sh.o.r.e, 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 doc.u.mentation 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 a.s.sociation 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, _Doc.u.mentary 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.