The ease and frequency of neighborly visits is vividly demonstrated in the characteristically cooperative cabin-raisings, barn-raisings, cornhuskings and similar activities in which joint effort was usual. The women, too, exchanged visits and, on occasion, gathered at one place for quilting or other mutually shared activities.[10] Furthermore, the frontier journalists often noted the fine hospitality and congeniality of their backwoods hosts.[11] Further evidence of the egalitarian influence of this frontier is found in the joint participation of Fair Play settlers in voluntary associations.[12] This is particularly noticeable in their attendance at outdoor sermons and involvement in the various political activities. At a time when fewer than 100 families lived in the territory, Fithian observed that "There were present about an Hundred & forty" people for a sermon which he gave on the banks of the Susquehanna, opposite the present city of Lock Haven, on Sunday, July 30, 1775.[13] Although William Colbert, a Methodist, later "preached to a large congregation of willing hearers" within the territory, he did not think that it was "worth the preachers while to stop here."[14] This may have been due to the fact that they were mainly Presbyterians. Colbert's reception was apparently fair for he makes a point of saying, "I know not that there is a prejudiced person among them."[15] No regular church was established in this region until 1792, so it appears that the settlers generally participated in group religious activities regardless of the denominational affiliation of the preacher conducting the services. However, as we will point out later, this is not to suggest that there was no friction between denominations. The political activities of the Fair Play settlers demonstrate the mass participation, at least of the adult males, in this type of voluntary association. The annual elections of the Fair Play men were conducted without discrimination against any of the settlers by reason of religion, national origin, or property. In addition, the decisions of the tribunal were carried out, as Smith reports, "by the whole body, who started up in mass, at the mandate of the court."[16] Special occasions, such as the Pine Creek Declaration of Independence, were also marked by the participation _en masse_ of these West Branch pioneers. Mrs. Hamilton, in her widow's pension application, speaks of "seeing such numbers flocking there" (along the banks of Pine Creek in July of 1776).[17] Apparently, as Mrs. Hamilton says, most of the settlers "had a knolege of what was doing," particularly with regard to political affairs.[18]