The warrant was taken out in the name of James Hughes, (the father of the plaintiff who is since dead,) for the benefit of his children.
After argument by Mr. Charles Smith and Mr. Duncan for the plaintiff, and Mr. Daniel Smith and Mr. Read for the defendant, Justice Shippen in the charge of the court to the jury, said—
The dispute here, is between a first improvement, and a subsequent but much more valuable improvement. But neither of the parties has any legal or equitable right, but under the act of the 21st December 1784. The settlement on this land was against law. It was an offence that tended to involve this country in blood. But the merit and sufferings of the actual settlers cancelled the offence, and the legislature, mindful of their situation, provided this special act for their relief. The preamble recites their "resolute stand and sufferings," as deserving a right of pre-emption. The legislature had no eye to any person who was not one of the occupiers after the commencement of the war, and a transient settler removed, (no matter how,) is not an object of the law. This is our construction of the act. James Hughes under whom the plaintiff claims, died before the war, the other occupied the premises after, and in the language of the act, "stood and suffered." If this construction be right, the cause is at an end.
Besides, the plaintiff claims as the heir of Thomas, who was the heir of James, the first settler. I will not say that the fair play men could make a law to bind the settlers; but they might by agreement bind themselves. Now Thomas was one of these, and was bound by his conduct, from disputing the right of the defendant.
This warrant it seems, is taken out in the name of the father, and it is said, as a trustee for his children. It is sometimes done for the benefit of all concerned. If this be the case, it may be well enough; but still it is not so regular, as it might have been[.] With these observations, we submit it to you.
Verdict for the defendant.[29]
This case, although originated in the Northumberland County Court in 1786, was appealed to the State Supreme Court, where the lower court decision was affirmed in 1791. The summary runs the gamut of Fair Play procedures from settlement, through questions of tenure, to ejectment. Its completeness indicates its usefulness. Partial and occasional depositions in the other cases cited help to round out the picture of the Fair Play "code."
For example, the right of settlement included not only the approval of the Fair Play men, but also the acceptance of the prospective landholder by his neighbors. Allusions to this effect are made in the Coldren deposition as well as in the Huff-Latcha case. Eleanor Coldren's deposition, made at Sunbury, June 7, 1797, concerns the disputed title to certain lands of her deceased husband, Abraham Dewitt, opposite the Great Island. Her comments about neighbor approval demonstrate the point. She says, for instance, that
... in the Spring of 1775, Henry Antes and Cookson Long, two of the Fair-Play Men, with others, were at the deponent's house, next below Barnabas Bonner's Improvement, where Deponent's Husband kept a Tavern, and heard Antes and Long say that they (meaning the Fair-Play Men) and the Neighbors of the Settlement had unanimously agreed that James Irvin, James Parr, Abraham Dewitt and Barnabas Bonner should ... have their Improvement Rights fitted....
She speaks of the resolution of the claims problem "as being the unanimous agreement of the Neighbors and Fair-Play Men...."[30]