[19] _See_ the footnotes in Chapter Five referring to _The Journal of William Colbert_.
[21] Leyburn, _The Scotch-Irish_, pp. 311-314.
[22] _The Journal of William Colbert._ Colbert had been received at Annanias McFaddon's (Aug. 20, 1792, Sept. 4, 1793) and John Hamilton's (July 23, 1792, Aug. 20, 1793), where he both preached and lodged. Both were Presbyterians, and, as noted earlier, Colbert expressed grave doubts concerning his efforts there.
[23] "Diary of the Unknown Traveler," p. 307.
[24] Turner, _Frontier and Section_, p. 5.
_Frontier Ethnography and the Turner Thesis_
In the first chapter of his recent study, _The Making of an American Community_, Merle Curti suggests that "less is to be gained by further analysis of Turner's brilliant and far-ranging but often ambiguous presentations than by patient and careful study of particular frontier areas in the light of the investigator's interpretation of Turner's theory."[1] This study was undertaken with just such a purpose in mind. In addition, it is hoped that this investigation will give some insight into the value of ethnography and its usefulness as an analytic technique in studying the frontier.
By definition, ethnography is "the scientific description of nations or races of men, their customs, habits, and differences."[2] Frontier ethnography is the scientific description of the full institutional pattern of a particular group of people, located specifically on a certain frontier, within a certain period of time. That institutional pattern is described from the analysis of data concerning the political and economic systems, and the social structure, including religion, the family, the value system, social classes, art, music, recreation, mythology, and folklore. Also, as noted in the first two chapters of this study, geographic and demographic data have been analyzed in an attempt to picture the area under observation and the people who inhabited that region. It is believed that these various data present a fuller view of the "way of life" of these people than the earlier politico-military accounts of nineteenth-century historians.
Of course, there are certain limitations in this particular analysis. This study is not meant to be typical of the frontier experience or necessarily representative of frontier communities. However, it would have broader implications if a similar study were made for Greene County in western Pennsylvania, where a group composed mainly of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians also set up a "Fair Play system."[3] Furthermore, it is my interpretation of Turner's thesis which is being tested, not the validity of the thesis.