A statistical analysis has been made as a significant part of the demography of the Fair Play settlers. However, limitations in data may raise some questions regarding the validity of the conclusions. Nevertheless, the national and ethnic origins of these settlers, their American sources of emigration, the periods of immigration, the reasons for migration, and population stability and mobility have all been investigated. The result offers some surprises when compared with the trends of the time--in the Province and throughout the colonies. The _politics_ of Fair Play is the principal concern of this entire study--appropriately, it was from their political system that these frontiersmen derived their unusual name. This was not the only group to use the name, however. Another "fair play system" existed in southwestern Pennsylvania during the same period, and perhaps a similar study can be made of those pioneers and their life. As for the Fair Play community of the West Branch, we know about its political structure through the cases subsequently reviewed by established courts of the Commonwealth. From these cases, we have reconstructed a "code" of operation which demonstrates certain democratic tendencies. In addition to studying the political system, an effort has been made to validate the story of the locally-famed Pine Creek Declaration of Independence. Although some evidence for such a declaration was found, it seems inconclusive. The West Branch Valley was part of what Turner called the second frontier, the Allegheny, and so this agrarian frontier community has been examined for evidence of the democratic traits which Turner characterized as particularly American. This analysis is not meant to portray a typical situation, but it does provide support for Turner's evaluation. As this was a farmer's frontier, and as transportation and communication facilities were extremely limited, a generally self-sufficient and naturally self-reliant community developed as a matter of survival. The characteristics which this frontier nurtured, and the non-English--even anti-English--composition of its population make understandable the sentiment in this region for independence from Great Britain. This, of course, is supremely demonstrated in the separate declaration of independence drawn, according to the report, by the settlers of the Fair Play frontier.