pretation of it.

The geographic analysis has clarified the question of the Tiadaghton,
demonstrating that Lycoming Creek, rather than Pine Creek, was the true
eastern boundary of the Fair Play territory. The substantial destruction
of an erroneous legend has been the main contribution of the geographic
part of this study.[14] It is now clear that the Fair Play territory
extended from Lycoming Creek, on the north side of the West Branch of
the Susquehanna River, to the Great Island, just east of Lock Haven.
This frontier region was beyond the legal limit of settlement of the
Province and the Commonwealth from 1769 to 1784. Hence, within its
limits was formed the extra-legal political system known as Fair Play.

The demographic portion of this study has added to the undermining of
the frontier myth of the Scotch-Irish. The evidence presented here
indicates that it was the frontier, rather than national origin, which
affected the behavior of the pioneers of the West Branch Valley. The
Fair Play settlers, a mixed population of seven national stock groups,
reacted similarly to the common problems of the frontier experience. In
one important exception, the Fair Play system itself, there is, however,
an apparent contradiction. Since no account of any "fair play system"
has turned up in the annals of the Cumberland Valley, the American
reservoir of the Scotch-Irish, it seems quite probable that the "system"
originated in either Northern Ireland or Scotland, or else on the
frontier itself. This probability offers good ground for further study,
particularly when the existence of a similar "system" in Greene County,
which was found in conjunction with this investigation, is
considered.[15] If the Fair Play system originated on the frontier, why
did not it also appear on the Virginia and Carolina frontiers where the
Scotch-Irish predominated? Regardless, the lack of data corroborating
the American origin of the Fair Play system leads to the conclusion that
the germ of this political organization was brought to this country by
the Scotch-Irish from their cultural heritage, and that those elements
were found usable under the frontier conditions of both central and
southwestern Pennsylvania. If so, the politics of "fair play" will add
to, rather than detract from, the myth of the Scotch-Irish.

This study has also brought forward the first complete account of court
records validating the activities of the Fair Play men. Mainly conce