Observable in this atmosphere were the traits of a developing American character, traits which the frontier historian, Frederick Jackson Turner, defined as democratic.[24] These included the composite nationality of a population of mixed national origins; the self-reliance which the new experience of the frontier developed; the independence, both of action and in spirit, which the relative isolation of the environment promoted; a rationalistic, or pragmatic, approach to problems necessitated by circumstances lacking in precedents for solution; and perhaps a growing nationalism, marked by an identification with something larger than the mere Provincial assembly, something existing, but not yet realized, the American nation.
These traits, in conjunction with Turner's thesis, are a major concern of the final chapter. That chapter will provide an evaluation of frontier ethnography as a technique for testing the validity of this interpretation of Turner's thesis on the Fair Play frontier of the West Branch Valley.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Quoted in Austin Ranney and Willmoore Kendall, Democracy and the American Party System (New York, 1956), pp. 23-24.
[2] Don Martindale, American Society (New York, 1960), p. 105.
[3] National Education Association, Educational Policies Commission, The Education of Free Men in American Democracy (Washington, 1941), pp. 25-26.
[4] Pp. 18-39.
[5] Smith, Laws, II, 195.
[6] "Eleanor Coldren's Deposition," pp. 220-222; Lycoming County Docket No. 2, Commencing 1797, No. 32; see also, Chapter Two, passim.
[7] Pennsylvania Archives, Second Series, III, 217; and the Muncy Historical Society, Wagner Collection, Hamilton Papers.