The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 | Page 7

mean
Pine Creek.[25]
Another traveler along the Sheshequin Path was the colonial botanist,
John Bartram. Bartram, in the company of Weiser and Lewis Evans,
the map maker, notes in his diary of July 12, 1743, riding "down [up] a
valley to a point, a prospect of an opening bearing N, then down the hill
to a run and over a rich neck lying between it and the Tiadaughton."[26]
Incidentally, the editor of this extract from Bartram's journal makes the
quite devastating point that Meginness did not know of Bartram's
journal, which was published in London in 1751 but which did not
appear in America until 1895.[27]
One of the Moravian journalists who visited the scenic Susquehanna
along the West Branch was Bishop John Ettwein, who passed through
this valley on his way to Ohio in 1772. He wrote of "Lycoming Creek,
[as the stream] which marks the boundary line of lands purchased from
the Indians."[28]
Perhaps the most interesting and informative diarist who journeyed
along the West Branch was the Reverend Philip Vickers Fithian.
Fithian came to what we will establish as Fair Play country on July 25,
1775, at what he called "Lacommon Creek." His conclusion was that
this creek was the Tiadaghton.[29] It is this same Fithian, it might be
added, whose Virginia journals were the primary basis for the
reconstruction of colonial Williamsburg.
The work of colonial cartographers also substantiates the claim that
Lycoming Creek is the Tiadaghton. Both Lewis Evans, following his
1743 journey in the company of Bartram and Weiser, and John Adlum,

who conducted a survey of the West Branch Valley in 1792 for the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, failed to label Pine Creek as the
"Tiadaghton" on their maps.[30] In fact, Adlum's map of 1792, found
among the papers of William Bingham, designates the area east of
Lycoming Creek as the "Old Purchase." Furthermore, as is the case
with Evans' map, Adlum does not apply the Tiadaghton label to either
Pine Creek or Lycoming Creek.[31]
Two applications in 1769 for land in the New Purchase show that the
Tiadaghton, or in this case "Ticadaughton," can only be Lycoming
Creek. The application of Robert Galbreath (no. 1823) is described as
"Bounded on one side by the Proprietor's tract at Lycoming." Martin
Stover applied for the same tract (application no. 2611), which is
described as "below the mouth of Ticadaughton Creek."[32] The copies
of these two applications, together with the copy of the survey, offer
irrefutable proof of the validity of Lycoming's claim.
Perhaps the final note is the action of the General Assembly of the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on December 12, 1784.[33] The
legislators affirmed the judgments of the frontier journalists, whose
recorded journeys offer the best proof that the Lycoming is the
Tiadaghton. Prior to this action, the Provincial authorities had issued a
proclamation on September 20, 1773, prohibiting settlement west of
Lycoming Creek by white persons. Violators were to be apprehended
and tried. The penalties were real and quite severe: £500 fine, twelve
months in prison without bail, and a guarantee of twelve months of
exemplary conduct after release.[34] Court records, however, fail to
indicate any prosecutions.
Finally, the latest scholar to delve into the complexities of the Stanwix
treaties, Professor Peter Marshall, says that there was no prolonged and
close discussion about the running of the treaty line in Pennsylvania
(the Tiadaghton question), no discussion in any way comparable to that
which took place over its location in New York.[35]
In summary then, it appears that the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768
was responsible for opening the West Branch Valley to settlement,
such settlement being stimulated by the opening of the Land Office in

Philadelphia on April 3, 1769. James Tilghman, secretary of the Land
Office, published the notice of his office's willingness "to receive
applications from all persons inclinable to take up lands in the New
Purchase."[36] The enthusiasm generated by the opening of the Land
Office is shown by the better than 2,700 applications received on the
very first day. However, the question of the Tiadaghton came to be a
source of real contention. The ambiguity of the Indian references to the
western boundary of the first Stanwix Treaty led the eager settlers, who
were seeking to legitimize claims in the area between Lycoming and
Pine creeks, to favor Pine Creek. There was substance to the settlers'
claim.
The significance of the boundary question to this study is better
understood when it is recognized that the so-called Fair Play system of
government in lands beyond the Provincial limits must have a definable
locale. It is this writer's firm conviction that Fair Play territory extended
from Lycoming Creek, on the north side of the West Branch of the
Susquehanna, to the Great Island, some five miles west of Pine Creek.
The foundation