Locally, the rotational system of the Fair Play tribunal and the frequent changes in the composition of the Committee of Safety give rise to the conclusion that political democracy, in the sense of active participation in public office, was truly a characteristic of the Fair Play territory. Nine different men served on the three-man Committee of Safety from February of 1776 to February of 1777, three new members being elected semi-annually. Except for the two or three years following the Great Runaway, the three members of the Fair Play tribunal were elected annually.
In conclusion, then, what can be said regarding the leadership of the Fair Play settlers? Except for the dangers from Indian hostility, which were compounded by the settlers' limited manpower, the leadership was more than adequate, one might say eminently successful, in meeting the needs of the frontier. It enacted law, interpreted it, and saw to it that the law was carried out on every political level with which the West Branch pioneers had contact. In short, it gave them a government of, by, and for themselves. This was real representation by spokesmen of a small community, very different from virtual representation in a distant Parliament, from which their independence had now been declared.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Edwin MacMinn, On the Frontier with Colonel Antes (Camden, N. J., 1900). This book is a mosaic of primary and secondary sources dealing with the entire area, rather than a standard biographical treatment of its particular subject.
[2] Merle Curti, The Making of an American Community: A Case Study of Democracy in a Frontier County (Stanford, 1959), pp. 417-441. This entire fifteenth chapter is devoted to both a quantitative and qualitative analysis of "leadership."
[3] Wealth, i.e., liquid assets, was not necessarily a criterion on this agrarian frontier, where a man's assets were not easily convertible into cash. Hence, property was the main economic source of value.
[4] The records of the first State and county officers are found in the Pennsylvania Archives, Second Series, III, 768-772, and John Blair Linn, Annals of Buffalo Valley (Harrisburg, 1877), pp. 558-563. Some data are also available in Linn, History of Centre and Clinton Counties.
The tax listings were located in the Pennsylvania Archives, Third Series, XIX, 437, 468, 557, and 618-622. Mrs. Russell also collected a listing for the years 1774 to 1800 for Northumberland County. Court records, pension claims, Meginness' Otzinachson (1889) and Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania provided the remaining data.
[5] MacMinn, On the Frontier with Colonel Antes, p. 19.
[6] Ibid., pp. 20-21. MacMinn also calls the senior Antes the father of the Unity Conferences of Christian Endeavor and presents a copy of a letter written on Dec. 17, 1741, calling for a New Year's Day meeting of Christians in Germantown in 1742 in support of this statement. Of his minor judicial role, MacMinn offers this account published in Christopher Saur's Pensylvanische Berichte for May 16, 1756: "Were such magistrates more numerous, the poor would not have cause to complain and to weep over gross injustices which they have to suffer because persons are respected."