The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 | Page 9

Frontier and Section, p. 51.
[3] Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History (New
York, 1963), p. 9.
[4] E. B. O'Callaghan, Documentary History of the State of New York
(Albany, 1849), I, 587-591.

[5] Henry Steele Commager, Documents of American History (New
York, 1958), I, 49.
[6] An earlier twentieth-century historian misinterprets the first
Stanwix Treaty in much the same manner as earlier colonial historians
erred in their judgments of the Proclamation of 1763. Albert T.
Volwiler, George Croghan and the Westward Movement, 1741-1782
(Cleveland, 1926), p. 250, really overstates his case, if the Fair Play
settlers are any example, when he claims that the Fort Stanwix line, by
setting a definite boundary, impeded the western advance. Establishing
friendships with the Indians and then persuading them to sell their
lands proved valuable to more than speculators, whose case Volwiler
documents so well, as West Branch settlements after 1768 will attest.
[7] The extension of Provincial authority to Pine Creek would have
taken in three-fourths of what we have labeled Fair Play territory.
[8] John F. Meginness, Otzinachson: A History of the West Branch
Valley of the Susquehanna (Williamsport, 1889), p. 106. The full
passage from the Bethlehem Diary (now in the Moravian Archives)
was translated by the late Dr. William N. Schwarze for Dr. Paul A. W.
Wallace, historian of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum
Commission, as follows: "In the afternoon [June 8, New Style] our
brethren left that place [beyond Montoursville] and came in the evening
to the Limping Messenger on the Tiadachton Creek, where they spent
the night." In the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, II
(1878), 432 (hereafter cited as PMHB), Zeisberger's account is
translated in this manner: "In the afternoon we proceeded on our
journey, and at dusk came to the 'Limping Messenger,' or Diadachton
Creek [a note identifies this as Lycoming], and encamped for the
night." Here the error is in identifying the Limping Messenger with the
stream. Meginness, of course, repeated the error in his Otzinachson
(1889), p. 106. Referring the passage to Vernon H. Nelson of the
Moravian Archives, through Dr. Wallace, resulted in a clarification of
the translation and the affirmation of the "Limping Messenger" as a
camp on the stream. In the Bethlehem Diary, under June 8, 1754, the
sentence appears as follows: "des Nachm. reissten unsre Brr Wieder

von da weg u kamen Abends zum hinckenden Boten an der Tiatachton
Creek, u lagen da uber Nacht." In the original travel journal the passage
reads: "des Nachm. reissten wir wieder von da weg, u kamen Abends
zum hinckenden Boten an der Tiatachton Crick u lagen da uber Nacht."
De Schweinitz in his Zeisberger further confused the issue in his
description of the journey. He takes the adventurers (Zeisberger,
Spangenburg, Conrad Weiser, Shickellamy, and Andrew Montour)
through the valley of the Tiadaghton Creek on the Sheshequin Path to
Onondaga (Syracuse). There was an Indian path up Pine Creek, but it
led to Niagara, not Onondaga.
[9] Meginness, Otzinachson (1889), p. 106. This is an added note of
Meginness' commentary upon the citation noted above.
[10] John Blair Linn, History of Centre and Clinton Counties,
Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1883), p. 468. Linn also deals with the
Tiadaghton question in his "Indian Land and Its Fair Play Settlers,"
PMHB, VII (1883), 420-425. Here he simply defines Fair Play territory
as "Indian Land" encompassing the Lycoming-Pine Creek region.
[11] Minutes of the First Session of the Ninth General Assembly of the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ... (Philadelphia, 1784), Appendix,
Proceedings of the Treaties held at Forts Stanwix and McIntosh, pp.
314-322.
[12] Ibid., Oct. 23, p. 319.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid., Oct. 22, p. 316.
[15] E. B. O'Callaghan, Documents Relative to the Colonial History of
the State of New York, VIII (Albany, 1857), 125. In the discussions
preceding the Fort Stanwix Treaty of 1768, the Indians' description of
the boundary line could be interpreted as favoring Pine Creek: "... to
the Head of the West Branch of Susquehanna thence down the same to
Bald Eagle Creek thence across the River at Tiadaghta Creek below the
great Island, thence by a straight Line to Burnett's Hills and along the

same...." The juxtaposition of Bald Eagle Creek, the Great Island, and
"Tiadaghta" Creek makes this conclusion plausible.
[16] See also ibid., Guy Johnson's map illustrating the treaty line,
opposite p. 136.
[17] D. S. Maynard, Historical View of Clinton County, From Its
Earliest Settlement To The Present Time (Lock Haven, 1875), p. 8. The
line is given by Maynard as follows: "... and took in the lands lying east
of the North Branch of the Susquehanna, beginning at Owego, down to
Towanda, thence up the same and across to the headwaters of Pine
Creek; thence down the same to Kittanning...."
[18] Eugene P. Bertin, "Primary Streams of Lycoming