The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 | Page 5

Valley of the Susquehanna has been a source of some confusion because of the employment of the name "Tiadaghton" in the treaty to designate that boundary. The question, quite simply, is whether Pine Creek or Lycoming is the Tiadaghton. If Pine Creek is the Tiadaghton, an extra-legal political organization would have been unnecessary, for the so-called Fair Play settlers of this book would have been under Provincial jurisdiction.[7] The designation of Lycoming Creek as the Tiadaghton tends to give geographic corroboration for the Fair Play system.
First and foremost among the Pine Creek supporters is John Meginness, the nineteenth-century historian of the West Branch Valley. His work is undoubtedly the most often quoted source of information on the West Branch Valley of the Susquehanna, and rightfully so. Although he wrote when standards of documentation were lax and relied to an extent upon local legendry as related by aged residents, Meginness' views have a general validity. However, there is some question regarding his judgment concerning the boundary issue.
Quoting directly from the journal of Moravian Bishop Augustus Spangenburg, who visited the West Branch Valley in 1745 in the company of Conrad Weiser, David Zeisberger, and John Schebosh, Meginness describes the Bishop's travel from Montoursville, or Ostonwaken as the Indians called it, to the "Limping Messenger," or "Diadachton Creek," where the party camped for the night.[8] It is interesting to note that the Moravian journalist refers here to Lycoming Creek as the Tiadaghton, some twenty-three years prior to the purchase at Fort Stanwix, which made the question a local issue. Yet Meginness, in a footnote written better than a hundred years later, says that "It afterwards turned out that the true Diadachton or Tiadachton, was what is now known as Pine Creek."[9]
Perhaps Meginness was influenced by the aged sources of some of his accounts. It may be, however, that he was merely repeating the judgment of an earlier generation which had sought to legalize its settlement made prior to the second Stanwix Treaty. The Indian description of the boundary line in the Fort Stanwix Treaty of 1768 may also have had some impact upon Meginness. Regardless, a comparison of data, pro and con, will demonstrate that the Tiadaghton is Lycoming Creek.
John Blair Linn, of Bellefonte, stood second to Meginness in popular repute as historian of the West Branch Valley. However, he too calls Pine Creek the Tiadaghton, though the reliability of his sources is questionable. Unlike Meginness, whose judgment derived somewhat from interviews with contemporaries of the period, Linn based his contention upon the statements made by the Indians at the second Stanwix Treaty meeting in 1784.[10]
At those sessions on October 22 and 23, 1784, the Pennsylvania commissioners twice questioned the deputies of the Six Nations about the location of the Tiadaghton, and were told twice that it was Pine Creek.[11] In the first instance, Samuel J. Atlee, speaking for the other Pennsylvania commissioners, called attention to the last deed made at Fort Stanwix in 1768 and asked the question about the Tiadaghton:
This last deed, brothers, with the map annexed, are descriptive of the purchase made sixteen years ago at this place; one of the boundary lines calls for a creek by the name of Tyadoghton, we wish our brothers the Six Nations to explain to us clearly which you call the Tyadoghton, as there are two creeks issuing from the Burnet's Hills, Pine and Lycoming.[12]
Captain Aaron Hill, a Mohawk chief, responded for the Indians:
With regard to the creek called Tyadoghton, mentioned in your deed of 1768, we have already answered you, and again repeat it, it is the same you call Pine Creek, being the largest emptying into the west branch of the Susquehannah.[13]
This, of course, was the "more positive answer" which the Indians had promised after the previous day's interrogation.[14] It substantiated the description given in the discussions preceding the Fort Stanwix Treaty of 1768.[15] However, the map illustrating the treaty line, although tending to support this view, is subject to interpretation.[16] Regardless, this record of the treaty sessions provides the strongest evidence to sustain the Pine Creek view.
There is little doubt that Meginness and Linn were influenced by the record. This is certainly true of D. S. Maynard, a lesser nineteenth-century historian, whose work is obviously based upon the research of Meginness. Maynard repeated the evidence of his predecessor from the account of Thomas Sergeant by describing the Stanwix Treaty line of 1768 as coming "across to the headwaters of Pine Creek." Maynard's utter dependence upon Meginness suggests that his evidence is more repetitive than substantive.[17]
A more recent student of local history, Eugene P. Bertin, of Muncy, gives Pine Creek his undocumented support, which appears to be nothing more than an elaboration of the accounts of Meginness and Linn.[18] Dr. Bertin's account appears to be better folklore than history.[19]
Another twentieth-century writer,