The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 / A Study of Frontier Ethnography

by George D. Wolf

Fair Play Territory: Geography and Topography

The Colonial period of American history has been of primary concern to the historian because of its fundamental importance in the development of American civilization. What the American pioneers encountered, particularly in the interior settlements, was, basically, a frontier experience. An ethnographic analysis of one part of the Provincial frontier of Pennsylvania indicates the significance of that colonial influence. The "primitive agricultural democracy" of this frontier illustrates the "style of life" which provided the basis for a distinctly "American" culture which emerged from the colonial experience.[1]

While this writer's approach is dominantly Turnerian, this study does not necessarily contend that this Pennsylvania frontier was typical of the general colonial experience, nor that this ethnographic analysis presents in microcosm the development of the American ethos. However, on this farmer's frontier there was adequate evidence of the composite nationality, the self-reliance, the independence, and the nationalistic and rationalistic traits which Turner characterized as American.

In his famed essay on "The Significance of the Frontier," Turner saw the frontier as the crucible in which the English, Scotch-Irish, and Palatine Germans were merged into a new and distinctly American nationality, no longer characteristically English.[2] The Pennsylvania frontier, with its dominant Scotch-Irish and German influence, is a case in point.

The Fair Play territory of the West Branch Valley of the Susquehanna River, the setting for this analysis, was part of what Turner called the second frontier, the Allegheny Mountains.[3] Located about ninety miles up the Susquehanna from the present State capital at Harrisburg, and extending some twenty-five-odd miles westward between the present cities of Williamsport and Lock Haven, this territory was the heartland of the central Pennsylvania frontier in the decade preceding the American Revolution.

The term "Fair Play settlers," used to designate the inhabitants of this region, is derived from the extra-legal political system which these democratic forerunners set up to maintain order in their developing community. Being squatters and, consequently, without the bounds of any established political agency, they formed their own government, and labeled it "Fair Play."

However, despite the apparent simplicity of the above geographic description, the exact boundaries of the Fair Play territory have been debated for almost two centuries. Before we can assess the democratic traits of the Fair Play settlers, we must first clearly define what is meant by the Fair Play territory.

The terminal points in this analysis are 1768 and 1784, the dates of the two Indian treaties made at Fort Stanwix (now Rome), New York. The former opened up the Fair Play territory to settlement, and the latter brought it within the limits of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, thus legalizing the de facto political structure which had developed in the interim.

According to the treaty of 1768, negotiated by Sir William Johnson with the Indians of the Six Nations, the western line of colonial settlement was extended from the Allegheny Mountains, previously set by the Proclamation of 1763, to a line extending to the mouth of Lycoming Creek, which empties into the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. The creek is referred to as the Tiadaghton in the original of the treaty.[4] The question of whether Pine Creek or Lycoming Creek was the Tiadaghton is the first major question of this investigation. The map which faces page one outlines the territory in question.

Following the successful eviction of the French in the French and Indian War, the American counterpart of the Seven Years' War, the crown sought a more orderly westward advance than had been the rule. Heretofore, the establishment of frontier settlements had stirred up conflict with the Indians and brought frontier pleas to the colonial assemblies for military support and protection. The result was greater pressure on the already depleted exchequer. The opinion that a more controlled and less expensive westward advance could be accomplished is reflected in the Royal Proclamation of 1763.

This proclamation has frequently been misinterpreted as a definite effort to deprive the colonies of their western lands. The very language of the document contradicts this. For example, the expression "for the present, and until our further pleasure be known" clearly indicates the tentative nature of the proclamation, which was "to prevent [the repetition of] such irregularities for the future" with the Indians, irregularities which had prompted Pontiac's Rebellion.[5] The orderly advancement of this colonial frontier was to be accomplished through subsequent treaties with the Indians. The Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768 is one such example of those treaties.[6]

The term "Fair Play settlers" refers to the residents of the area between Lycoming Creek and the Great Island on the north side of the West Branch of the Susquehanna River, and to those who interacted with them, during the period 1769-1784, when that area was outside of the Provincial limits. The appellation stems from the annual designation by the settlers of "Fair Play Men," a tribunal of three with quasi-executive, legislative, and judicial authority over the residents.

The relevance of the first Stanwix Treaty to the geographic area of this study is a matter of the utmost importance. The western boundary of that treaty in the West Branch Valley of the Susquehanna has been a source of some confusion because of the employment of the name "Tiadaghton" in the treaty to designate that boundary. The question, quite simply, is whether Pine Creek or Lycoming is the Tiadaghton. If Pine Creek is the Tiadaghton, an extra-legal political organization would have been unnecessary, for the so-called Fair Play settlers of this book would have been under Provincial jurisdiction.[7] The designation of Lycoming Creek as the Tiadaghton tends to give geographic corroboration for the Fair Play system.

First and foremost among the Pine Creek supporters is John Meginness, the nineteenth-century historian of the West Branch Valley. His work is undoubtedly the most often quoted source of information on the West Branch Valley of the Susquehanna, and rightfully so. Although he wrote when standards of documentation were lax and relied to an extent upon local legendry as related by aged residents, Meginness' views have a general validity. However, there is some question regarding his judgment concerning the boundary issue.

Quoting directly from the journal of Moravian Bishop Augustus Spangenburg, who visited the West Branch Valley in 1745 in the company of Conrad Weiser, David Zeisberger, and John Schebosh, Meginness describes the Bishop's travel from Montoursville, or Ostonwaken as the Indians called it, to the "Limping Messenger," or "Diadachton Creek," where the party camped for the night.[8] It is interesting to note that the Moravian journalist refers here to Lycoming Creek as the Tiadaghton, some twenty-three years prior to the purchase at Fort Stanwix, which made the question a local issue. Yet Meginness, in a footnote written better than a hundred years later, says that "It afterwards turned out that the true Diadachton or Tiadachton, was what is now known as Pine Creek."[9]

Perhaps Meginness was influenced by the aged sources of some of his accounts. It may be, however, that he was merely repeating the judgment of an earlier generation which had sought to legalize its settlement made prior to the second Stanwix Treaty. The Indian description of the boundary line in the Fort Stanwix Treaty of 1768 may also have had some impact upon Meginness. Regardless, a comparison of data, pro and con, will demonstrate that the Tiadaghton is Lycoming Creek.

John Blair Linn, of Bellefonte, stood second to Meginness in popular repute as historian of the West Branch Valley. However, he too calls Pine Creek the Tiadaghton, though the reliability of his sources is questionable. Unlike Meginness, whose judgment derived somewhat from interviews with contemporaries of the period, Linn based his contention upon the statements made by the Indians at the second Stanwix Treaty meeting in 1784.[10]

At those sessions on October 22 and 23, 1784, the Pennsylvania commissioners twice questioned the deputies of the Six Nations about the location of the Tiadaghton, and were told twice that it was Pine Creek.[11] In the first instance, Samuel J. Atlee, speaking for the other Pennsylvania commissioners, called attention to the last deed made at Fort Stanwix in 1768 and asked the question about the Tiadaghton:

This last deed, brothers, with the map annexed, are descriptive of the purchase made sixteen years ago at this place; one of the boundary lines calls for a creek by the name of Tyadoghton, we wish our brothers the Six Nations to explain to us clearly which you call the Tyadoghton, as there are two creeks issuing from the Burnet's Hills, Pine and Lycoming.[12]

Captain Aaron Hill, a Mohawk chief, responded for the Indians:

With regard to the creek called Tyadoghton, mentioned in your deed of 1768, we have already answered you, and again repeat it, it is the same you call Pine Creek, being the largest emptying into the west branch of the Susquehannah.[13]

This, of course, was the "more positive answer" which the Indians had promised after the previous day's interrogation.[14] It substantiated the description given in the discussions preceding the Fort Stanwix Treaty of 1768.[15] However, the map illustrating the treaty line, although tending to support this view, is subject to interpretation.[16] Regardless, this record of the treaty sessions provides the strongest evidence to sustain the Pine Creek view.

There is little doubt that Meginness and Linn were influenced by the record. This is certainly true of D. S. Maynard, a lesser nineteenth-century historian, whose work is obviously based upon the research of Meginness. Maynard repeated the evidence of his predecessor from the account of Thomas Sergeant by describing the Stanwix Treaty line of 1768 as coming "across to the headwaters of Pine Creek." Maynard's utter dependence upon Meginness suggests that his evidence is more repetitive than substantive.[17]

A more recent student of local history, Eugene P. Bertin, of Muncy, gives Pine Creek his undocumented support, which appears to be nothing more than an elaboration of the accounts of Meginness and Linn.[18] Dr. Bertin's account appears to be better folklore than history.[19]

Another twentieth-century writer, Elsie Singmaster, offers more objective support for Pine Creek, although her argument appears to be better semantics than geography.[20]

Edmund A. DeSchweinitz, in his biography of David Zeisberger, errs in his interpretation of the term "Limping Messenger" (Tiadaghton), used by Bishop Spangenburg in his account of their journey to the West Branch Valley in 1745. He notes that on their way to Onondaga (Syracuse) after leaving "Ostonwaken" (Montoursville) they passed through the valley of Tiadaghton Creek. They were following the Sheshequin Path. But he identifies the Tiadaghton with Pine Creek. There was an Indian path up Pine Creek, but it led to Niagara, not Onondaga.[21]

Aside from the designation by the Indians at the second Stanwix Treaty, there is only one other source which lends any credibility to the Pine Creek view, and that is Smith's Laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. After the last treaty was made acquiring Pennsylvania lands from the Indians, the legislature, in order to quell disputes about the right of occupancy in this "New Purchase,"[22] passed the following legislation:

And whereas divers persons, who have heretofore occupied and cultivated small tracts of land, without the bounds of the purchase made, as aforesaid, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight, and within the purchase made, or now to be made, by the said commissioners, have, by their resolute stand and sufferings during the late war, merited, that those settlers should have the pre-emption of their respective plantations:

Be it therefore enacted by the authority aforesaid, That all and every person or persons, and their legal representatives, who has or have heretofore settled on the north side of the west branch of the river Susquehanna, upon the Indian territory, between Lycomick or Lycoming creek on the east, and Tyagaghton or Pine creek on the west, as well as other lands within the said residuary purchase from the Indians, of the territory within this state, excepting always the lands herein before excepted, shall be allowed a right of pre-emption to their respective possessions, at the price aforesaid.[23]

It may be worth observing, however, that legislation tends to reflect popular demand rather than the hard facts of a situation. In this case the settlers of the region prior to 1780 stood to benefit by this legislation and formed an effective pressure group.

The contrary view in this long-standing geographical debate is based, for the most part, upon the records of journalists and diarists who traveled along the West Branch prior to the first Stanwix Treaty and who thus had no axe to grind.

That the Lycoming Creek was in fact the Tiadaghton referred to by the Indians at Fort Stanwix in 1768 is strongly indicated by the weight of evidence derived from the journals of Conrad Weiser (1737), John Bartram (1743), Bishop Spangenburg (1745), Moravian Bishop John Ettwein (1772), and the Reverend Philip Vickers Fithian (1775). In addition, the maps of Lewis Evans (1749) and John Adlum (1792), the land applications of Robert Galbreath and Martin Stover (1769), and a 1784 statute of the Pennsylvania General Assembly all tend to validate Lycoming's claim to recognition as the Tiadaghton. Each datum has merit in the final analysis, which justifies the specific examination which follows:

Supporting evidence is found in Weiser's German journal, which was meant for his family and friends, and translated into English by his great-grandson, Hiester H. Muhlenberg. (Weiser also kept an English journal for the Council at Philadelphia.) Weiser wrote: "The stream we are now on the Indians call Dia-daclitu, (die berirte, the lost or bewildered) which in fact deserves such a name."[24] (This is an obvious misspelling of Diadachton.) Weiser was following the Sheshequin Path with Shickellamy to Onondaga and this entry is recorded on March 25, 1737, long before there was any question about the Tiadaghton.

There seems to be some confusion over Bishop Spangenburg's use of the term "Limping Messenger" in his journal for June 8, 1745. He too was traveling the Sheshequin Path with David Zeisberger, Conrad Weiser, Shickellamy, Andrew Montour, et al. He describes the "Limping Messenger" as a camp on the "Tiadachton" (Lycoming), whereas DeSchweinitz in his Zeisberger interprets the term to mean Pine Creek.[25]

Another traveler along the Sheshequin Path was the colonial botanist, John Bartram. Bartram, in the company of Weiser and Lewis Evans, the map maker, notes in his diary of July 12, 1743, riding "down [up] a valley to a point, a prospect of an opening bearing N, then down the hill to a run and over a rich neck lying between it and the Tiadaughton."[26] Incidentally, the editor of this extract from Bartram's journal makes the quite devastating point that Meginness did not know of Bartram's journal, which was published in London in 1751 but which did not appear in America until 1895.[27]

One of the Moravian journalists who visited the scenic Susquehanna along the West Branch was Bishop John Ettwein, who passed through this valley on his way to Ohio in 1772. He wrote of "Lycoming Creek, [as the stream] which marks the boundary line of lands purchased from the Indians."[28]

Perhaps the most interesting and informative diarist who journeyed along the West Branch was the Reverend Philip Vickers Fithian. Fithian came to what we will establish as Fair Play country on July 25, 1775, at what he called "Lacommon Creek." His conclusion was that this creek was the Tiadaghton.[29] It is this same Fithian, it might be added, whose Virginia journals were the primary basis for the reconstruction of colonial Williamsburg.

The work of colonial cartographers also substantiates the claim that Lycoming Creek is the Tiadaghton. Both Lewis Evans, following his 1743 journey in the company of Bartram and Weiser, and John Adlum, who conducted a survey of the West Branch Valley in 1792 for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, failed to label Pine Creek as the "Tiadaghton" on their maps.[30] In fact, Adlum's map of 1792, found among the papers of William Bingham, designates the area east of Lycoming Creek as the "Old Purchase." Furthermore, as is the case with Evans' map, Adlum does not apply the Tiadaghton label to either Pine Creek or Lycoming Creek.[31]

Two applications in 1769 for land in the New Purchase show that the Tiadaghton, or in this case "Ticadaughton," can only be Lycoming Creek. The application of Robert Galbreath (no. 1823) is described as "Bounded on one side by the Proprietor's tract at Lycoming." Martin Stover applied for the same tract (application no. 2611), which is described as "below the mouth of Ticadaughton Creek."[32] The copies of these two applications, together with the copy of the survey, offer irrefutable proof of the validity of Lycoming's claim.

Perhaps the final note is the action of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on December 12, 1784.[33] The legislators affirmed the judgments of the frontier journalists, whose recorded journeys offer the best proof that the Lycoming is the Tiadaghton. Prior to this action, the Provincial authorities had issued a proclamation on September 20, 1773, prohibiting settlement west of Lycoming Creek by white persons. Violators were to be apprehended and tried. The penalties were real and quite severe: £500 fine, twelve months in prison without bail, and a guarantee of twelve months of exemplary conduct after release.[34] Court records, however, fail to indicate any prosecutions.

Finally, the latest scholar to delve into the complexities of the Stanwix treaties, Professor Peter Marshall, says that there was no prolonged and close discussion about the running of the treaty line in Pennsylvania (the Tiadaghton question), no discussion in any way comparable to that which took place over its location in New York.[35]

In summary then, it appears that the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768 was responsible for opening the West Branch Valley to settlement, such settlement being stimulated by the opening of the Land Office in Philadelphia on April 3, 1769. James Tilghman, secretary of the Land Office, published the notice of his office's willingness "to receive applications from all persons inclinable to take up lands in the New Purchase."[36] The enthusiasm generated by the opening of the Land Office is shown by the better than 2,700 applications received on the very first day. However, the question of the Tiadaghton came to be a source of real contention. The ambiguity of the Indian references to the western boundary of the first Stanwix Treaty led the eager settlers, who were seeking to legitimize claims in the area between Lycoming and Pine creeks, to favor Pine Creek. There was substance to the settlers' claim.

The significance of the boundary question to this study is better understood when it is recognized that the so-called Fair Play system of government in lands beyond the Provincial limits must have a definable locale. It is this writer's firm conviction that Fair Play territory extended from Lycoming Creek, on the north side of the West Branch of the Susquehanna, to the Great Island, some five miles west of Pine Creek. The foundation for the establishment of Lycoming Creek as the Tiadaghton, and consequently, as the eastern boundary of the Fair Play territory is apparent once all the evidence is examined. Aside from the comments of the Indians at the treaty negotiations and Smith's Laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, there are only secondary accounts with little documentation to sustain the Pine Creek argument.

On the other hand, the Lycoming Creek claim is buttressed by such primary sources as the journals of Weiser, Bartram, Spangenberg, Ettwein, and Fithian, three of which were written before the location of the Tiadaghton became a subject of dispute. Since none of these men was seeking lands, they can be considered impartial observers. Furthermore, the cartographic efforts of Lewis Evans and John Adlum followed actual visits to the region and say nothing to favor the Pine Creek view.

Perhaps the Indians were merely accepting an already accomplished fact at the meeting in 1784. Dr. Paul A. W. Wallace says that this would have been expected from the subservient, pacified Indian. Regardless, the Provincial leadership made no effort to settle the lands in what some called "the disputed territory" until after the later agreement at Stanwix; in fact, they discouraged it.[37] The simple desire for legitimacy gives us very little to go on in the light of more than adequate documentation of the justice of the Lycoming view.

This evidence might suggest changing the name of the long-revered "Tiadaghton Elm" to the "Pine Creek Elm" and bringing to a close the vexatious question of the Tiadaghton. However let us strike a note of caution, if not humility. Indian place names had a way of shifting, doubling, and moving, since they served largely as descriptive terms and not as true place names. It is not at all unusual to find the same name applied to several places or to find names migrating. The Tiadaghton could have been Lycoming Creek to some Indians at one time, and Pine Creek to others at the same or another time. Consider, for example, that there were three Miami rivers in present Ohio, which are now known as the Miami, the Little Miami, and the Maumee. It hardly makes any real difference to the geography of the Fair Play territory, or to the delimiting of its boundaries, which stream was the Tiadaghton. Actually, it was the doubt about it which drew in the squatters and created Fair Play. These settlers justified their contention that the Tiadaghton was Pine Creek by moving into the territory and holding onto it. This may be reason enough for calling the famous tree the Tiadaghton Elm, even if early travelers and the proprietary officials said that the Tiadaghton was Lycoming Creek.[38]

The topography of the region also influenced the delineation of what we call Fair Play territory. The jugular vein which supplies the life-blood to this region is undoubtedly the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. This branch of the great river, which drains almost fifty per cent of the State, follows a northeasterly course of some forty miles from the Great Island, which is just east of present Lock Haven, to what is now Muncy, then turns southward.[39]

The West Branch of the mighty Susquehanna, which has plagued generations of residents with its spring floodings, was the primary means of ingress and egress for the area. Rich bottom lands at the mouths of Lycoming, Larrys, and Pine creeks drew the hardy pioneer farmers, and here they worked the soil to provide the immediate needs for survival. Hemmed in on the north by the plateau area of the Appalachian front and on the south by the Bald Eagle Mountains, these courageous pioneers of frontier democracy carved their future out of the two-mile area (more often less) between those two forbidding natural walls. With the best lands to be found around the mouth of Pine Creek, which is reasonably close to the center of this twenty-five-mile area, it seems quite natural that the major political, social, and economic developments would take place in close proximity—and they did.[40]

Thus, an area never exceeding two miles in width and spanning some ten miles (presently from Jersey Shore to Lock Haven) was the heartland of Fair Play settlement. Lycoming Creek, Larrys Creek, and Pine Creek all run south into the West Branch, having channeled breaks through the rolling valley which extends along the previously defined territory.

"The land was ours before we were the land's," the poet said, and it seems apropos of this moment in history.[41] Fair Play territory, possessed before it was owned and operated under de facto rule, would be some time in Americanizing the sturdy frontiersmen who came to bring civilization to this wilderness.