free lands of
opportunity for a better life, and the history of the westward movement
of the American people gives ample proof of their conquest. But the new
frontiers are not so clearly marked or so easily conquered. Perhaps a
re-examination of the history of the old frontiers can give increased
meaning to the problems of the new. This investigation was attempted, in
part, to serve such a purpose.

The intelligent solution to the problem of survival for the pioneers of
the West Branch Valley was fair play. The ethnography of the Fair Play
settlers is the record of the democratic development of an American
community under the impact of the new experience of the frontier.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] P. 2.

[2] _The Oxford Universal Dictionary_ (Oxford, 1955), p. 637.

[3] Solon and Elizabeth Buck, _The Planting of Civilization in Western
Pennsylvania_ (Pittsburgh, 1939), pp. 431 and 451.

[4] _See_, for example, Dunaway, _A History of Pennsylvania_, p. 146,
and _The Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania_, pp. 159-160; _also_,
Leyburn, _The Scotch-Irish_, p. 306.

[5] Turner, _The Frontier in American History_, p. 1.

[6] _See_ Chapter Two.

[7] Quoted by Ray Allen Billington in his introduction to Turner,
_Frontier and Section_, p. 5.

[8] _Pennsylvania Archives_, Second Series, III, 217-218, 518-522.

[9] This pride was notably demonstrated in the insistence of the Fair
Play settlers that a stand be made at Fort Augusta following the Great
Runaway. Previous to this, they had pleaded for support for "our Common
Cause" in the defense of this frontier. _Pennsylvania Archives_, Second
Series, III, 217.

[10] _Pennsylvania Archives_, Second Series, X, 27-31, 417, and Fifth
Series, II, 29-35.

[11] Quoted in Clinton Rossiter, _The First American Revolution_ (New
York, 1956), pp. 4-5.

[12] Turner, _The Frontier in American History_, p. 37.

[13] _Ibid._

[14] _See also_, George D. Wolf, "The Tiadaghton Question," _The Lock
Haven Review_, Series I, No. 5 (1963), 61-71.

[15] Buck, _The Planting of Civilization in Western Pennsylvania_, pp.
431, 451.

[16] Anna Jackson Hamilton to Hon. George C. Whiting, Commissioner of
Pensions, Dec. 16, 1858, Wagner Collection, Muncy Historical Society.

[17] _Colonial Records_, X, 634-635. The following resolution of
Congress was entered in the minutes of the Council of Safety on July 5,
1776:

_Resolved_, That Copies of the Declaration be sent to the several
Asse