The Fair Play Men were illegal settlers (squatters) who established their own system of self-rule from 1773 to 1785 in the West Branch Susquehanna River valley of Pennsylvania in what is now the United States. Because they settled in territory claimed by Native Americans, they had no recourse to the Pennsylvania colonial government. Accordingly they established what was known as the Fair Play System, with three elected commissioners who ruled on land claims and other issues for the group. In a remarkable coincidence, the Fair Play Men made their own Declaration of Independence from Britain on July 4, 1776 beneath the "Tiadaghton Elm" on the banks of Pine Creek.
Read more about Fair Play Men: The 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, The Fair Play System, The Pine Creek Declaration of Independence, The Big Runaway, After The War, Legacy
Famous quotes containing the words fair, play and/or men:
“When I was a bachelor, I lived by myself
And I worked at the weaver’s trade;
The only, only, thing that I ever did wrong
Was to woo a fair young maid.
I wooed her in the winter time,
And in the summer too;
And the only, only thing that I ever did wrong
Was to keep her from the foggy, foggy dew.”
—Unknown. The Foggy, Foggy Dew (l. 1–8)
“But when we play the fool, how wide
The theatre expands! beside,
How long the audience sits before us!
How many prompters! what a chorus!”
—Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)
“Many’s the time I’ve seen Barney go off, just that same way. Goodbye. Sometimes he’d wave. Ten to one he wasn’t even seein’ me. He was thinkin’ about all those men, you see. All those men who went out to fight, to kill, be killed. And blast his eyes, lovin’ it.”
—Lamar Trotti (1898–1952)