From 'Peaceable Kingdom' to 'Wild West': Violence and Crime on the Early American Frontier

The research project is an historical study of violence and crime on the Early American frontier, examining the extent to which, and reasons why, the early American frontier became the locus of such violence and disorder. The databases available are collections of petty criminal cases from the court of common pleas and court of quarter sessions for 13 counties in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio, USA and Ontario, Canada, ranging in date from 1730 to 1820. In addition there is tax data in 26 datasets for the same counties, covering the same dates. The datasets being made available are not the principal output of the project but part of the research methods. The data itself will not be available until January 2011—the project concludes in August 2011.