Total Scotch-Irish English German Scots Irish Welsh French ==================================================================== 80 39 16 12 5 4 2 2 % 48.75 20 15 6.25 5 2.5 2.5 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Not only were the Scotch-Irish the most numerous national stock among the Fair Play settlers of the West Branch Valley, but they also represented a plurality and almost a majority of the entire population. The significance of this finding in terms of the "style of life" of the Fair Play settlers cannot be over-emphasized. It influenced the politics, the religion, the family patterns, and thus the values of this frontier society. Several other important conclusions can be drawn from this chart. In contrast to the population of Pennsylvania in general and the assumptions regarding frontier areas in particular, the English, rather than the Germans, were the second most numerous national stock group. The Germans, however, made up the third-largest segment of the West Branch Valley population. The Scots, Welsh, Irish, and a few French inhabitants formed the remaining sixteen per cent of the population. Obviously, this was a dominantly Anglo-Saxon Protestant area of settlement. The impact of this Scotch-Irish hegemony upon the religion, politics, family life, and social values in general will be dealt with in a later chapter. However, it can be noted at this juncture that the strong-willed individualism which characterized these sturdy people was as much influenced by their national origin as by their experience on the American frontier. Furthermore, Presbyterianism influenced and was influenced by a developing democratic political system, which paralleled the American Presbyterian system of popular rather than hierarchical church government.[3] A prominent immigration historian has pointed out that "the theory of Presbyterian republicanism, as a matter of church policy, could easily be reconciled with demands of the more radical democrats of 1776."[4] Finally, the social life and customs and, hence, the values of this frontier society were governed for the most part by this majority group. Thus, dogmatic faith, political equality, social and economic independence, respect for education, and a tightly-knit pattern of family relationships express appropriately the institutional patterns by which the Scotch-Irish of the West Branch operated. It is interesting to contrast the national stock groupings of this Susquehanna frontier with the results of a study of national origins of the American population made by the American Council of Learned Societies and published in 1932:[5] CHART 2 Classification of the White Population into Its National Stocks in the Continental United States and Pennsylvania: 1790; and in the Fair Play Territory: 1784 (Expressed in Percentages).