[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 Association sent missionaries to the area in 1775 and 1778. However, not until the association 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 emancipation, and finally into the citizen's revolution" (p. 137). He calls "the political maturity which followed the era of religious emancipation ... 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 Constitution of 1787, was federal in its governmental structure, and the autonomy of the local religious institutions 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 institutions. 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."
[47] Lycoming County Courthouse, Will Book #1, George Quigley's Will, p. 69.
[48] Maynard, Historical View of Clinton County, p. 208.
[49] Carrie A. Hall and Rose G. Kretsinger, The Romance of the Patchwork Quilt in America (New York, 1935), p. 27.
[50] Journal of William Colbert, Thursday, Sept. 5, 1793.
[51] Lycoming County Courthouse, Will Book #1, William Chatham's Will, p. 177. Chatham's bequest is "To Robert Devling My Fidel."
[52] Dunaway, The Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania, p. 196.