It has been said by some that the first instance of the operation of lynch-law in America was in December, 1763, at Paxtang (now Harrisburg), Pennsylvania. Indian scalping parties had been laying waste the settlements with relentless fury, and the appeals of the settlers to the Quaker government for help had been treated with contempt. Exasperated at the policy pursued by the Quakers toward the Indians, the Scotch-Irish who had settled in Lancaster and Cumberland counties formed several companies of Rangers to patrol the borders and give protection. “About the middle of December, word was brought to the settlers living at Paxtang, that an Indian known to have committed depredations in the vicinity had been traced to Conestoga. Matthew Smith, a man of influence and popularity among his associates, called together a number of the Paxtang Rangers, and led them to the Conestoga settlement. One of the men saw an Indian issuing from a house, and thought that he recognized him as the savage who had killed his own mother. Firing his rifle, he brought the Indian down. Then, with a loud shout, the furious mob rushed into the cabins, and killed all the Indians whom they found there, some six in number. Fourteen of the Conestogas managed to escape, and, fleeing to Lancaster, were given a place of refuge in the county jail. While there, word was again carried to the Paxtang men that an Indian, known to have murdered the relatives of one of their number, was among those who had received the protection of the Lancaster magistrates. This again aroused a feeling of rage and resentment amongst the Rangers. On December 27, some fifty of them, under the leadership of Lazarus Stewart, marched to Lancaster, broke open the jail, and with the fury of a mob massacred every Indian contained therein, man, woman, and child.”[68] In connection with this incident it has been suggested that the Scotch-Irish are to blame for the introduction of lynch-law in America; that they brought with them traditions of the administration of summary justice in Mediæval Scotland, and, amidst the perils of the frontier, quickly resorted to the ancient methods of suppressing violence and depredation. The case of the Regulators in the Carolinas is also cited as an instance of the Scotch-Irish backwoodsmen taking the administration of justice into their own hands, when their rulers failed to provide for them a safe government. It is said that this same self-reliant spirit is exhibited in the “family feuds of Kentucky, which for the most part seem peculiar to families bearing Scottish names.”[69]