time, it seems logical to assume that a
similar basis for suffrage operated in the West Branch Valley.[8] Having
no regular church--the first, a Presbyterian, was not organized until
1792--property qualifications appear to have been the basis for what, in
this area, was practically universal manhood suffrage. Due to the fact
that the entire settlement consisted of squatters, practically all of
the heads of households were property holders, regardless of the
questionable legality of their holdings. The tax lists indicate holdings
of some 100 to 300 acres on the average for residents, so it is
particularly difficult to know whether or not a minimum holding
requirement prevailed. The Provincial suffrage requirement in this
period was generally fifty acres of land or L50 of personal property.[9]

Although this study encompasses a fifteen-year period from 1769 to 1784,
it appears that the Fair Play system functioned for about five years,
from 1773 to 1778. This is due to the fact that only "fourty
Improvements,"[10] meaning forty family settlements, existed in the area
by 1773, and that following the Great Runaway of 1778, the territory was
almost devoid of settlers. The void was filled, however, when settlers
began returning toward the end of the Revolution and following the
accession of the territory in the second Stanwix Treaty, in 1784. Thus,
for all practical purposes, the functioning of the Fair Play system was
confined to this more limited time. Furthermore, the system was
supplemented in 1776 by the introduction of the Committee of Safety, and
later that year by the Council of Safety.[11]

As is indicated in Smith's _Laws_, annual meetings were held to select
the governing tribunal of three for the ensuing year. Generally convened
at some readily accessible place, these sessions were presumably held in
the open or at one of the frontier forts erected in the area: Fort
Antes, across the river from Jersey Shore; or Fort Horn, located on the
south side of the Susquehanna about eight miles west of Jersey Shore.
There were frontier forts in the vicinity of the present Muncy--Fort
Muncy--and Lock Haven--Fort Reed; but Fort Muncy was some twenty-odd
miles east of the Fair Play territory and Fort Reed was beyond the Great
Island at its western extremity. As a result, these outposts were
unlikely meeting places for the tribunal or for its election.[12]
Unfortunately, there is no recorded evidence of a specific meeting of
the