Some corroboration for the legendary tale of a "Fair Play Declaration of Independence" was found in the course of this study. Although consisting, in the main, of accounts culled from the records of Revolutionary War pension claimants made some eighty years after the event, the evidence is that of a contemporary.[16] However, the most common objection to this conclusion, that the Fair Play declaration was merely the reading of a copy of Jefferson's Declaration, is unsubstantiated by the archival descriptions.[17] Perhaps the Fair Play declaration is apocryphal, but, lacking valid disclaimers, the Hamilton data offer some basis for a judgment. It is the tentative conclusion of this writer that there was such a declaration on the banks of Pine Creek in July of 1776.
The Fair Play territory was truly "an area of free land" in which a "new order of Americanism" emerged.[18] Individualistic and self-reliant of necessity, the pioneers of this farmers' frontier rationally developed their solution to the problem of survival in the wilderness, a democratic squatter sovereignty. With land readily available and a free labor system to work it, provided that the family was large enough to assure sufficient "hands," these agrarian frontiersmen not only cultivated the soil but also a free society. And their cooperative spirit, despite their mixed national origins, was markedly noticeable at harvesttime. From such spirit are communities formed, and from such communities a democratic society emerges.
This analysis has not only described the geography and demography, the politics and economics of the Fair Play settlers; it has also examined the basis and structure of this society, including the value system which undergirded it. The results have pictured the religious liberty extant in a frontier society isolated from any regular or established church, a liberty of conscience which left each man free to worship according to the dictates of his own faith. This freedom, this right to choose for himself, made the Fair Play settler surprisingly receptive to other groups and their practices, practices which he was free to reject, and often did.[19] This analysis has also pointed up the class structure and its significance in promoting order in a frontier community. And finally, an examination of the value system of these Pennsylvania pioneers has provided an understanding of why they behaved as they did.
The last major aspect of this investigation concerned the nature of leadership. Determined by the people, and thus essentially democratic, it had certain peculiar characteristics. In the first place, the top leaders tended to come from the Fair Play community in its broadest social sense, but not from the Fair Play territory in its narrow geographic sense.[20] Secondly, the political participation of the Fair Play settlers, if office-holding is any criterion, emphasizes the high degree of involvement in terms of the total population.[21] And last, this leadership appeared to be overextended when faced with the problem of defending its own frontier and the new nation which was striving so desperately for independence. Consequently, it was forced to turn to established government for support. This may have been the embryonic beginning of the nationalism which the frontier fostered in later generations.
What then, is the meaning of this particular study, an ethnographic interpretation of Turner's thesis? Turner himself, gave the best argument for ethnography. He said that
... the economist, the political scientist, the psychologist, the sociologist, the geographer, the student of literature, of art, of religion—all the allied laborers in the study of society—have contributions to make to the equipment of the historian. These contributions are partly of material, partly of tools, partly of new points of view, new hypotheses, new suggestions of relations, causes, and emphasis. Each of these special students is in some danger of bias by his particular point of view, by his exposure to see simply the thing in which he is primarily interested, and also by his effort to deduce the universal laws of his separate science. The historian, on the other hand, is exposed to the danger of dealing with the complex and interacting social forces of a period or of a country from some single point of view to which his special training or interest inclines him. If the truth is to be made known, the historian must so far familiarize himself with the work, and equip himself with the training of his sister-subjects that he can at least avail himself of their results and in some reasonable degree master the essential tools of their trade.[22]
Frontier ethnography is just such an effort.
The frontier ethnographer then, because of his interdisciplinary approach, can capture the spirit of pioneer life. And if, as Turner suggested, the frontier explains American development, then frontier ethnography presents an understanding of the American ethos with its ideals of discovery, democracy, and individualism.[23] These ideals characterize "the American spirit and the meaning of America in world history."[24]
The ideal of discovery, "the courageous determination to break new paths," as Turner called it, was abundantly evident in the Fair Play territory of the West Branch Valley.[25] This innovating spirit can be seen in the piercing of the Provincial boundary, despite the restrictive legislation to the contrary, and the establishment of homes in Indian territory.[26] It was also demonstrated in a marvelous adaptability in solving the new problems of the frontier, problems for which the old dogmas were no longer applicable. The new world of the Susquehanna frontier made new men, Americans.
Self-determination, the ideal of democracy as we have defined it, was the cornerstone of Fair Play society. Its particular contribution was the Fair Play "system" with its popularly elected tribunal of Fair Play men. Perhaps this was the proper antecedent of the commission form of local government which came into vogue on the progressive wave of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Regardless, the geographic limitations of the Fair Play territory, the frequency of elections, and the open conduct of meetings tend to substantiate the democratic evaluation which has been made of the politics of this frontier community. Furthermore, as was pointed out in the last chapter, this self-determination was the key characteristic of the economic and social life of these people.[27]