The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784: A Study of Frontier EthnographyWolf, George D.
History
The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784: A Study of Frontier Ethnography
Wolf, George D.
Frontier and pioneer life -- Pennsylvania; Lycoming County (Pa.) -- History
[24] Thomas J. Wertenbaker, _The First Americans, 1607-1690_ (New York,
1927). Wertenbaker's first chapter, "A New World Makes New Men,"
develops this thesis generally for the American colonial experience,
and, as Turner said, those first colonies were the first frontier.
[25] Clark, "Pioneer Life in the New Purchase," pp. 28, 63. Clark notes
that indentured servitude appeared in Muncy, where Samuel Wallis' great
holdings made such service feasible. He also mentions Wallis' ownership
of slaves, verified by the Quarter Session Docket of 1778. Wallis freed
two Negro slaves, Zell and Chloe, posting a L30 bond that they would not
become a charge on the township.
[26] Leyburn, _The Scotch-Irish_, p. 262. _See also_ Dunaway, _The
Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania_, pp. 180-200.
[27] These "fringe area" participants in Fair Play society actually
resided, for the most part, in Provincial territory and hence enjoyed
greater stability and more land.
[28] Calhoun, _A Social History of the American Family_, I, 207.
[29] _Ibid._
[30] Leyburn, _The Scotch-Irish_, p. 271. Leyburn points out that since
the Scotch-Irish were never a "minority," in the sense that their values
differed radically from the norms of their areas of settlement, they
never suffered the normlessness which Durkheim calls anomie--the absence
of clear standards to follow. As Leyburn states it,
Anomie was an experience unknown to the Scotch-Irishman, for he
moved immediately upon arrival to a region where there was neither a
settlement nor an established culture. He held land, knew
independence, had manifold responsibilities from the very outset. He
spoke the language of his neighbors to the East through whose
communities he had passed on his way to the frontier. Their
institutions and standards differed at only minor points from his
own. The Scotch-Irish were not, in short, a "minority group" and
needed no Immigrant Aid society to tide them over a period of
maladjustment so that they might become assimilated in the American
melting pot.
This, however, is not to suggest that minorities are necessarily anomic.
The Jews, for example, were always a cultural minority in Europe, yet
they adhered intensely to their own cultural norms.
[31] Muncy Historical Society, Wagner Collection, Hamilton Papers, p.
10.
[32] J. E. Wright and Doris S. Corbett, _Pioneer Life in Western
Pennsylvania_ (Pittsburgh, 1940), p. 142.
[33] _Ibid._ The existence of these "praying societies" is further
substantiated in Colbert's _Journal_. During these services, lay persons
gave exhortations or assisted Colbert in some fashion.
[34] _Fithian: Journal_, p. 76.
[35] Robert S. Cocks, _One Hundred and Fifty Years of Evangelism, The
History of Northumberland Presbytery 1811-1961_ (n. p., 1961), p. 2.
[36] _Fithian: Journal_, pp. 80-81.
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