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

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 for the establishment of Lycoming Creek as the Tiadaghton, and consequently, as the eastern boundary of the Fair Play territory is apparent once all the evidence is examined. Aside from the comments of the Indians at the treaty negotiations and Smith's Laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, there are only secondary accounts with little documentation to sustain the Pine Creek argument.
On the other hand, the Lycoming Creek claim is buttressed by such primary sources as the journals of Weiser, Bartram, Spangenberg, Ettwein, and Fithian, three of which were written before the location of the Tiadaghton became a subject of dispute. Since none of these men was seeking lands, they can be considered impartial observers. Furthermore, the cartographic efforts of Lewis