Abstract
DURING THE 1770S, hundreds of predominantly Scots-Irish settlers trespassed onto Indian territory north of the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. There they formed a squatter republic, annually electing a tribunal of "Fair Play Men" who distributed land to newcomers and kept order under a set of rules sometimes referred to as the Fair Play code. During the American Revolution, the squatters sided with the patriots, and Pennsylvania's republican government assumed control of the region. After the Revolution, the legislature granted the squatters the right to purchase the tracts they had occupied by filing pre-emption applications, which, if successful, would prevent the general public from buying the plots in question. An applicant could then request a warrant for the purchased land, pay for a survey, and receive a patent after the surveyor returned his records to the land office. Most of the squatters could not afford to buy their own lots and chose instead to sell their rights to the improvements they had made to the land. Those who sold tended to move away. Other squatters had the means to stay in the region after the Revolution, and several of them became leading members of their community.
