THE WHISKY INSURRECTION IN WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA

(1794)

BY RICHARD HILDRETH1

Very shortly after the adjournment of Congress, steps were taken, under the new act on that subject, for enforcing the collection of the excise duty in the western counties of Pennsylvania. Indietments were found against a number of distillers who had neglected to enter their stills; and thirty warrants were issued, which the marshal of the district undertook to serve. He succeeded as to twenty-nine of them; but as, in company with General Neville, the inspector of the district, he was going to serve the thirtieth, they were intercepted by a party of armed men, who fired upon them and compelled them to fly for their lives.

The next morning Neville's house, in the vicinity of Pittsburgh, was attacked by an armed party of forty or more. In expectation of some such violence, the windows had been barricaded; Neville's negroes and other servants had been armed; and the assailants were repulsed with the loss of six men wounded, one of them mortally. Neville immediately applied for protection to two magistrates and militia officers of the county. Upon their declaration that, however willing, it was utterly out of their power to give it, he obtained a

1 From Hildreth's "History of the United States." Edition of 1852. Published by Harper & Brothers.

detachment of eleven men from the neighboring garrison of Fort Pitt. The next morning the assailants reappeared, five hundred strong, led on by one John Holcroft, who, under the assumed name of Tom the Tinker, had been deeply concerned in stirring up previous outrages against officers who attempted to enforce the law, and distillers who were disposed to submit to it.

On the approach of this force, Neville escaped from the house, leaving his kinsman, Major Fitzpatrick, with the soldiers, to make such defense or capitulation as might seem expedient. The assailants had appointed a committee of three as directors of the enterprise, and they had chosen as commander one McFarlane, formerly a lieutenant in the Continental service. The surrender of Neville was demanded, and, on information that he was gone, the admission of six men to search the house for the papers connected with his office. This being refused, a flag was sent for the women to leave the house, soon after which an attack was commenced. McFarlane was killed and several other of the assailants were wounded; but they succeeded in setting fire to the outhouses, and, as the flames threatened to spread, the garrison, three of whom had been wounded, found themselves obliged to surrender. The men were dismissed without injury, but all the buildings were burned to the ground. The marshal and the inspector's son, who came up just after the surrender, were made prisoners. The marshal was subjected to a good deal of abuse, and was only dismissed after a promise, extorted by threats of instant death, and guaranteed by young Neville, not to attempt 2 Pittsburgh.

to serve any more processes west of the mountains. The next day a message was sent to Pittsburgh, where the inspector and the marshal had taken refuge, requiring the one to resign his office, and the other to give up the warrants in his possession. This they refused to do. The means of protection at Pittsburgh were small; and as the roads eastward would most likely be guarded, as the only means of escape, they embarked on the Ohio, descended as far as Marietta, and thence set out by land for Philadelphia, the greater part of the way through a wilderness.

The next decided step seems to have been a public meeting, held at Mingo Creek meetinghouse, in the neighborhood of which most of the late rioters resided. Bradford and Marshall were both present; also Brackenridge, a lawyer of Pittsburgh, a leading member of the Democratic club of that vicinity, who attended, according to his own account, by special invitation. Bradford was for making common cause with the rioters. Brackenridge suggested that, however justifiable in itself, their conduct was nevertheless illegal, and that it was bad policy to draw into the same position those who might otherwise act as mediators. It was finally agreed to call a convention of delegates from all the townships west of the mountains, and from the adjoining counties of Maryland and Virginia, to meet in three weeks at Parkinson's Ferry, on the Monongahela.

Two or three days after this preliminary meeting, anxious to ascertain how the late proceedings had been represented, Bradford caused the mail from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia to be intercepted. Letters were found in it, from young Neville and

others, giving accounts, by no means satisfactory to the parties concerned, of the burning of the inspector's house, and of the late meeting at Mingo Creek. Without waiting for the proposed convention, a circular, signed by Bradford, Marshall, and four or five others, was forthwith addrest to the officers of the militia of the western counties, stating that, by the interception of the mail, important secrets had been discovered, which made necessary an expression of sentiment, not by words, but by actions. The officers were therefore called upon to muster as many volunteers as they could, to assemble on the first of August at the usual place of rendezvous, at Braddock's Field, on the Monongahela, with arms and accouterments, and proviions for four days.

Meanwhile, the mail, with its contents, except the intercepted letters, was sent back to Pittsburgh, and the citizens of that town, to pacify the excitement, went through the form of expelling the obnoxious letter-writers.

The summons to the militia, tho it had only three days to circulate, and that among a population scattered over a wide extent of country, drew together not less than seven thousand armed men. Many afterward alleged that they went out of curiosity, and others, that their sole intention was to prevent mischief; and this was certainly the case with some who were present, among whom was Ross, the United States Senator. But the very fact of this prompt obedience to their orders could not but inspire the leaders with a high idea of their power and influence, while it tended also to increase

3 The scene of Braddock's defeat as described in Volume

III.

the mischief, by giving the impression to the public at large of a general unanimity of sentiment.

Colonel Cook, one of the judges of Fayette County, a member of the first popular convention held in Pennsylvania at the commencement of the Revolution, distinguished for his opposition to the excise, having repeatedly presided at the public meetings called to protest against it, was chosen president of this armed assembly. Albert Gallatin, the late rejected Senator, was appointed secretary. Bradford, to whom everybody cringed, assumed the character of major-general, and reviewed the troops. A committee, to whom matters of business were referred, resolved that two more citizens of Pittsburgh should be expelled. The troops then marched into the town, and after receiving refreshments, which the terrified inhabitants hastened to furnish, the greater part marched out again. The more orderly dispersed; but several parties kept together, one of which destroyed a barn belonging to Major Fitzpatrick, and another attempted, but without success, to burn his house in Pittsburgh.

It was Bradford's design, in calling this armed body together, to get possession of Fort Pitt, and the arms and ammunition deposited in it; but, finding most of the principal militia officers unwilling to cooperate, that design was abandoned. Immediately after this armed assembly the remaining excise officers were expelled even from those districts in which the opposition had hitherto been less violent. Many outrages were committed, some

Gallatin was afterward Secretary of the Treasury, in which office he gained great reputation as a financier. He was made Minister to France in 1816, and to England in 1826. He was a native of Geneva, Switzerland.