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 concerned with the adjudication of land questions, this frontier tribunal developed an unwritten code which encompassed the problems of settlement, tenure, and ejectment. Subsequently reviewed in the regular courts of the counties of which the Fair Play territory became a part, these cases provide substantial evidence of the existence of a "system" as well as insight into the manner of its operation. The fairness of the Fair Play system is marked by the fact that none of the decisions of its tribunal was later reversed in the established county courts. Supplemented by the Committee of Safety for Northumberland County and augmented by peripheral leaders, who gave them a voice in the higher councils of the State, the Fair Play men and their government proved adequate to the needs of the settlers, until all were driven off in the Great Runaway of 1778.