Fair Play men and the Declaration of Independence in Northcentral Pennsylvania

Two Declarations of Independence were signed on July 4^th of 1776 in Pennsylvania, one by the Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia. The second was signed by illegal squatters, known as the Fair Play men in northcentral Pennsylvania.

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. 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.

On July 4, 1776, the Fair Play Men met on the west bank of Pine Creek near the mouth of the West Branch Susquehanna River and declared their Independence from Britain. The traditional site for the declaration was beneath the "Tiadaghton Elm" tree, which stood until the 1970s in what is now Clinton County, Pennsylvania. This was west of Pine Creek in what was clearly Native American land.

The Fair Play Men met in their own Fort Horn (near the elm tree) and chose to send two men with the news to Philadelphia, not knowing that the Second Continental Congress had declared independence there the same day. The two messengers, Patrick Gilfillen and Michael Quigley Jr., were ambushed and robbed by Native Americans and later jailed by Loyalists, but escaped and made it to Philadelphia on July 10. They returned a short time later to bring word of the United States Declaration of Independence.

The Fair Play Men and their system continued after the end of the Revolutionary War. In 1784, a second Treaty at Fort Stanwix ceded the Native American lands to the new government of the United States (and recognized Pine Creek as "Tiadaghton Creek"). When the land office opened in May 1785, the Fair Play men were no longer illegal settlers and their existing land claims were recognized.

In the absence of primary written records, some modern historians have doubted whether the actual Tiadaghton Declaration of Independence took place on July 4, 1776, or whether it was made before knowledge of the United States Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia reached the Fair Play Men.

The Lock Haven Express reported in their June 25, 2024, issue that representatives of America250PA, the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, and the Clinton County Commissioners gathered at the site of the Tiadaghton Elm and dedicated a new Liberty Tree.

In partnership with the Pennsylvania Freemasons, America250PA’s Liberty Tree Project includes a certified Liberty Tree planted in each of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties beginning in the Fall of 2021, through 2026.