USA > Pennsylvania > Early history of western Pennsylvania, and of the West, and of western expeditions and campaigns, from MDCCLIV to MDCCCXXXIII > Part 72
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Monongahela City, known years ago as Parkinson's Ferry, lately Williamsport, on the Monongahela river, is a rapidly improving town. Since 1830, it has sprung into notice ; and has become the seat of ex- tensive manufacturers. It contains two glass manufactories, several steam saw-mills, and steam carding machines, and a number of mecha- [270]
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nic's shops ; several churches: Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Cum- berland Presbyterians. Its population is about 900. It was in 1840, 752. Settlements were made here at an early date. It was for a long time a famous crossing place. And no less notorious, as the place where " Whiskey Insurrection Gatherings " convened in 1794. It is eighteen miles east from the county town.
Canonsburg, incorporated in 1802, is pleasantly situated in a fertile and highly cultivated country, seven miles north of Washington, and eighteen from Pittsburg. It contained in 1840, a population of 687, and is the seat of Jefferson College, and of a Theological Seminary, under the direction of the Associate Church.
The other villages and towns are West Alexandria on the National Road, 17 miles west of Washington. Claysville, on the same road, 11 miles from Washington, population about 350. West Middletown, 13 miles north-east from Washington, population about 300. Hillsboro', on the National Road between Washington and Brownsville. Florence, Middleborough, West Middleborough, Greenfield, Amity, Bentleyville, Mount Pleasant, Eldersville, Burgetstown, Centreville, Bealesville, Mar- tinsburg, Taylorstown, Columbia, Briceland's Cross Roads, Fredericks- town, Findleyville.
The inhabitants of this county took a conspicuous part in the Whiskey Insurrection of 1791-'94. General Hamilton, then Secretary of the United States Treasury, says : "This county uniformly distinguished its resistance by a more excessive spirit than had appeared in the other counties, and was chiefly instrumental in kindling and keeping alive the flame." The following, abridged from several sources, is a brief history of the Whiskey Insurrection :
" The province of Pennsylvania, as early as 1756, had looked to the excise on ardent spirits for the means of sustaining its bills of credit. The original law, passed to continue only ten years, was from time to time continued, as necessities pressed upon the treasury. During the revolution, the law was generally evaded, in the west, by considering all spirits as for domestic use, such being excepted from excise ; but when the debts of the revolution began to press upon the states, they became more vigilant in the enforcement of the law. Opposition arose at once in the western counties. Liberty-poles were erected, and people, assem- bled in arms, chased off the officers appointed to enforce the law, tarred and feathered some of them, singed their wigs, cut off the tails of their horses, put coals in their boots, and compelled others to resign. Their object was to compel a repeal of the law, but they had not the least idea of subverting the government.
" The pioneers of this region, descended as they were from the people of North Britain and Ireland, had come very honestly by their love of whiskey ; and many of them had brought their hatred of an exciseman directly from the old country. The western insurgents followed, as they supposed, the recent example of the American revolution. The first attempt of the British parliament-the very cause of the revolutoin- had been an excise law. There was nothing at that day disreputable in either drinking or making whiskey. No temperance societies then ex- isted : to drink whiskey was as common and honorable as to eat bread ;
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and the fame of ' Old Monongahela' was proverbial, both at the east and the west. Distilling was then esteemed as moral and respectable as any other business. It was early commenced, and extensively carried on, in Western Pennsylvania. There was neither home nor foreign market for rye, their principal crop ; the grain would not bear packing across the mountains. A horse could carry but four bushels ; but he could take the product of 24 bushels in the shape of alcohol. Whiskey, therefore, was the most important item of remittance, to pay for their salt, sugar, and iron. 'The people had cultivated their land, for years, at the peril of their lives, with little or no protection from the federal government ; and when, by extraordinary efforts, they were enabled to raise a little more grain than their immediate wants required, they were met with a law restraining them in the liberty of doing what they pleased with the surplus. The people of Western Pennsylvania, therefore, re- garded a tax on whiskey in the same light as the citizens of Ohio would now regard a United States tax on lard, pork, or flour.'
" It should be remembered also in this connection, that the new fede- ral government was but recently organized ; its powers were but little understood in the west ; and the people of that section generally, for the previous twenty years, had been much more in the habit of opposing a foreign government, than of sustaining one of their own.
" 'The state excise law, after remaining for years a dead letter, was repealed, a circumstance not likely to incline the people to submit to a similar law passed by Congress on the 3d March. 1791, at the suggestion of Gen. Hamilton, secretary of the treasury. 'This law laid an excise of four-pence per gallon on all distilled spirits. The members from Western Penn., Smiley of Fayette, and Findley af Westmoreland, stoutly opposed the passage of the law, and on their return among their constituents loudly and openly disapproved of it. Albert Gallatin, then residing in Fayette co., also opposed the law by all constitutional methods. It was with some difficulty that any one could be found to accept the office of inspector in the western district on account of its unpopularity .* In this inflammatory state of the public mind, all that was necessary to kindle a blaze, was to apply the torch.
The first public meeting was held at Redstone Old Fort, 27th July, 1791, where it was concerted that county committees should meet at the
* In order to allay opposition as far as possible, Gen. John Neville, a man of the most deserved popularity, was appointed [chief inspector] for Western Pennsylvania. He accepted the appointment from a sense of duty to his country. He was one of the few men of great wealth, who had put his all at hazard for independence. At his own expense he raised and equipped a com- pany of soldiers, marched them to Boston, and placed them with his son under the command of Gen. Washington. He was the brother-in-law to the distin- guished Gen. Morgan, and father-in-law to Majors Craig and Kirkpatrick, officers highly respected in the western country. Besides Gen. Neville's claims as a soldier and a patriot, he had contributed greatly to relieve the sufferings of the settlers in his vicinity. He divided his last loaf with the needy ; and in a season of more than ordinary scarcity, as soon as his wheat was sufficiently matured to be converted into food, he opened his fields to those who were suffering with hunger. If any man could have executed this odious law, Gen. Neville was that man. He entered upon the duties of his office, and appointed his deputies from among the most popular citizens. The first attempts, however, to enforce the law, were resisted .- Judge Wilkeson.
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four county seats of Fayette, Allegheny, Westmoreland, and Washington. On the 23d Aug., the committee of Washington co. passed resolutions, and published them in the Pittsburg Gazette, to the effect that "any person who had accepted or might accept an office under Congress, in order to carry the law into effect, should be considered inimical to the interests of the country ; and recommending to the citizens of Wash- ington co. to treat every person accepting such office with contempt, and absolutely to refuse all kind of communication or intercourse with him, and withhold from him all aid, support, or comfort." Delegates from the four counties met at Pittsburg 7th Sept., 1791, and passed severe resolutions against the law. These meetings, composed of influential citizens, served to give consistency to the opposition.
On the 6th Sept. 1791, a party, armed and disguised, waylaid Robert Johnson, collector for Allegheny and Washington, near Pigeon creek, in Washington county, tarred and feathered him, cut off his hair, and took away his horse, leaving him to travel on foot in that mortifying condition. John Robertson, John Hamilton, and Thomas M'Comb, were proceeded against for the outrage, but Joseph Fox, the deputy- marshal, dared not serve the process ; and " if he had attempted it, be- lieves he should not have returned alive." Clement Biddle was the chief-marshal. The man sent privately with the process, was seized, whipped, tarred and feathered, his money and horse taken from him- blindfolded, and tied in the woods, where he remained five hours.
In Oct. 1791, an unhappy person named Wilson, who was in some measure disordered in his intellects, and affected to be, perhaps thought he was, an exciseman, and was making inquiry for distillers, was pur- sued by a party in disguise, taken out of his bed, and carried several miles to a blacksmith's shop. There they stripped off his clothes and burned them : and having burned him with a hot iron in several places, they tarred and feathered him, and dismissed him, naked and wounded. The unhappy man conceived himself to be a martyr to the discharge of an important duty. Not long afterward, one Roseberry was tarred and feathered for speaking in favor of the government.
In Congress, 8th May, 1792, material modifications were made in the law, lightening the duty, allowing monthly payments, &c.
In Aug. 1792, government succeeded in getting the use of William Faulkner's house, a captain in the U. S. army, for an inspection office. He was threatened with scalping, tarring and feathering, and compelled to promise not to let his house for that purpose, and to publish his pro- mise in the Pittsburg Gazette. The Pittsburg Gazette dared not refuse the publication of these notices.
The President issued a proclamation 15th Sept. 1792, enjoining all persons to submit to the law, and desist from all unlawful proceedings. Government determined, 1st, to prosecute delinquents ; 2d, to seize un- excised spirits on their way to market; and 3d, to make no purchases for the army except of such spirits as had paid duty.
In April, 1793, a party in disguise attacked in the night the house of Benjamin Wells, collector in Fayette county, (at Connelsville ;) but he being from home, they broke open his house, threatened, terrified, and abused his family. Warrants were issued against the offenders by R
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Judges Isaac Meason and James Findlay, but the sheriff refused to execute themn ; whereupon he was indicted. On the 22d Nov. they again attacked the house of Benjamin Wells in the night. They com- pelled him to surrender his commission and books, and required him to publish a resignation of his office within two weeks in the papers, on pain of having his house burned.
Notwithstanding these excesses, the law appeared during the latter part of 1793 to be rather gaining ground. Several principal distillers complied, and others showed a disposition, but restrained by fear.
In January, 1794, further violence commenced. William Richmond, who had informed in the affair of Wilson, (the maniac,) had his barn, grain, and hay burnt; and Robert Strawhan, a complying distiller, also had his barn burnt. James Kiddoe, a complying distiller, had his still- house broken open ; balls were fired into the still, and parts of his grist- mill carried away. William Coughran's still was destroyed; the saw of his saw-mill stolen, and his grist-mill greatly injured. He was threatened, in a figurative but expressive note, with having his property burned, if he did not himself publish in the Pittsburg Gazette the wrongs already inflicted on him.
In June, 1794, John Wells, the collector for Westmoreland, opened his office at the house of Philip Reagan, in that county. The house was at different times attacked in the night by armed men, who frequently fired on it; but they were always repulsed by Reagan and Wells, and the office was maintained during the remainder of the month .*
The office in Washington opened to received the annual entries of stills, after repeated attempts was suppressed. At first the sign was pulled down. On the 6th of June, twelve men, armed and painted black, broke into the house of John Lynn, where the office was kept, and, be- guiling him by a promise of safety to come down stairs, they seized and tied him, threatened to hang him, took him into the woods, cutoff his hair, tarred and feathered him, and swore him never again to allow the use of his house for an office, never to disclose their names, and never again to aid the excise ; having done this, they bound him, naked, to a tree, and left him. He extricated himself next morning. They afterwards pulled down part of his house, and compelled him to seek an asylum elsewhere. A term had come into popular use to designate the opposition to the
*Such is Findlay's and Hamilton's account. Judge Lobingeir, who has re- cently refreshed his recollections, by a conversation with Mr. Reagan, still living, gives the story more in detail. as follows : The attack was made in the night by a numerous body of men. Reagan expected them and had prepared himself with guns, and one or two men. The firing commenced from the house, and the assailants fired at it for some time, without effect on either side. The insurgents then set fire to Reagan's barn, which they burned, and retired. In the course of a day or two, one hundred and fifty men returned to renew the attack. After some parleying, Reagan, rather than shed blood, proposed to capitulate, provided they would do it on honorable terms, and give him as- surance that they would neither abuse his person, nor destroy his property ; and he would agree, on his part, to give up his commission, and never again act as an exciseman. These stipulations were agreed to, reduced to writing, and signed by the parties. Reagan then opened his door, and came out with a keg of whiskey and treated them. However, after the whiskey was drunk, some of them began to say that the old rascal was let off too easy, and that he ought to bes et up as a target to shot at. Some were for tarring and feathering [274]
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excise law ; it was that of Tom the Tinker. It was not given by ad- versaries as a term of reproach, but assumed by the insurgents in dis- guise at an early period. "A certain John Holcroft," says Mr. Breck- enridge, " was thought to have made the first application of it at the attack on William Coughran, whose still was cut to pieces. This was humorously called mending his still. The menders of course must be tinkers, and the name collectively became Tom the Tinker." Adver- tisements were put up on trees, and other conspicuous places, with the signature of Tom the Tinker, threatening individuals, admonishing, or commanding them. Menacing letters with the same signature were sent to the Pittsburg Gazette, with orders to publish them-and the edi- tor did not dare refuse. " At Braddock's field the acclamation was, ' Hurrah for Tom the Tinker !'-' Are you a Tom Tinker's man ?' Every man was willing to be thought so, and some had great trouble to wipe off imputations to the contrary." Mr. Findlay says, " it afterwards appeared that the letters did not originate with Holcroft, though the inventor of them has never been discovered."
In Congress, on the 5th June, 1794, the excise law was amended .- Those, however, who desired not amendment, but absolute repeal, were thereby incited to push matters to a more violent crisis. It became in- dispensable for the government to meet the opposition with more deci- sion. Process was issued against a number of non-complying distillers in Fayette and Allegheny. Indictments were found against Robert Smilie and John McCulloch, rioters, and process issued accordingly.
It was cause of great and just complaint in the western counties, that the federal courts sat only on the eastern side of the mountains, and that individuals were subject to ruinous expenses when forced to attend them. The process, requiring the delinquent distillers to appear at Philadel- phia, arrived in the west at the period of harvest, when small parties of men were likely to be assembled together in the fields. In Fayette county the marshal issued his process without interruption, though un- der discouraging circumstances. In that county the most influential citizens and distillers had, at a meeting in the winter or spring previous,
him, but others took his part, and said he had acted manfully, and that after capitulating they were bound to treat him honorably. At length they got to fighting amongst themselves. After this it was proposed and carried, that Reagan should be court-martialled, and that they would march off right away to Ben. Wells, of Fayette county, the excise officer there, and catch him and try him and Reagan both together. They set ont accordingly, faking Reagan along, but when they arrived at Wells's house he was not there, so they set fire to it and burned it to the ground with all its contents. They left an ambush near the ruins, in order to seize Wells. Next morning he was taken, but during the night, as Reagan had escaped, and Wells was very submissive with them, they let him off without further molestation.
'The next attack was made on Captain Webster, the excise officer for Som- erset county, by a company of about one hundred and fifty meu from West- moreland. They took his commission from him, and made him promise never again to act as a collector of excise. An attempt was made by some of the party to fire his haystacks, but it was prevented by others. They marched homeward, taking Webster a few miles. Seeing him very submissive, they ordered him to mount a stump, and repeat his promise never again to act as a collector of excise, and to hurrah three times for Tom the Tinker, after which they dismissed him.
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agreed to promote submission to the laws, on condition that a change should be made in the officers.
In Allegheny, the marshal had successfully served all the processes except the last, when, unfortunately, he went into Pittsburg. The next day, 15th July, 1794, he went in company with Gen. Neville, the in- spector, to serve the last writ on a distiller named Miller, near Peter's creek. After the writ was served, a number of men from the harvest field pursued the officers and fired upon them. Miller afterwards told H. H. Breckenridge, " that he was mad with passion when he reflected that being obliged to pay $250, and the expense of going to Philadel- phia, would ruin him ; and his blood boiled at seeing Gen. Neville along, to pilot the officer to his very door."
Early next morning, John Holcroft, the reputed 'Tom the 'Tinker, and about 36 others, appeared at Gen. Neville's house, (about seven miles south-west of Pittsburg.) Their conduct was suspicious ; they were fired on from the house, and returning the fire, they were fired on from the negro houses adjoining. They retired with six wounded -- one, Oliver Miller, mortally. The family received no injury. Gen. Neville was prepared, and had armed his negroes. The next morning not less than 500 men, mostly armed, attended at Couch's fort, a few miles from Gen. Neville's house ; many of them probably because they had not sufficient firminess to refuse. Rev. Mr. Clark, a venerable clergy- man, endeavored to dissuade them from their purpose, but in vain .-- From Couch's fort they marched to General Neville's house. Major James M'Farlane, who had been an officer in the revolution, of good standing and character, was appointed to command the attack.
On the other hand, Maj. Abraham Kirkpatrick, with a detachment of 11 men, from the garrison at Pittsburg, had arrived that morning, to assist Gen. Neville. The latter, when informed of the force coming against him, had prudently withdrawn to a place of concealment, leav- ing his house in charge of his kinsman Kirkpatrick. The females were permitted to retire before the attack was made. A deputation was sent from the insurgents to demand the commission of the inspector ; they supposing that without the commission he would be compelled to cease from his official duties. The commission was refused. The attack commenced and continued but fifteen minutes, when it was thought a flag had been exhibited from the house ; on which Mr. McFarland step- ped out from behind a tree, with a white handkerchief on the end of a stick. He was mortally wounded by a shot from the house. The at- tack was renewed with fury, and the property burnt down and destroyed. Maj. Kirkpatrick was compelled by the fire to surrender, but no one was injured after the surrender. Judge Wilkeson says: "At about eight o'clock in the evening I witnessed the commencement of the fire, at a distance of two miles, and saw the flames ascend from the burning houses, until the actors in the scene became visible in the increasing light. It was a painful sight, especially to those who had experienced the hospitality of the only fine mansion in the country, to see it des- troyed by a lawless mob, and its ininates exposed to their fury. Even those who were opposed to the measures of the administration, and had countenanced resistance to the execution of the excise law, were
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overwhelmed by this appalling commencement of open insurrection."
A meeting was held in the latter part of July, by the insurgents, at the Mingo Creek meeting-house. At this meeting, Messrs. Bradford, Parkinson, Cook, Marshall and Breckenridge, whose names became so conspicuous afterwards, appeared on the scene publicly, for the first time. David Bradford was a rash and headstrong attorney, from Wash- ington county. He openly advocated what had been done, and urged the necessity of unanimity. Breckenridge, whose object was to gain their confidence, that he might, under a disguise, eventually beguile them into moderation, seemed to countenance their conduct, but ven- tured to suggest that, though what they had done had been morally right, yet it was legally wrong; and suggested the propriety of con- sulting their fellow-citizens. A meeting of delegates from the four counties was, therefore, recommended at Parkinson's ferry, (now Wil- liamsport, or Monongahela city) on the 14th of Angust.
Soon after the Mingo meeting, Bradford and some of his hot-headed coadjutors caused the United States mail from Pittsburg, to be robbed near Greensburg, by a kinsman and namesake of Bradford, and a man named Mitchell, both of Washington county. They found therein let- ters from Gen. Gibson, Col. Presley Neville ,(son of the inspector) Mr. Bryson and Mr. Edward Day, which gave great offence to the insur- gents. The letter-writers were, in consequence, obliged to leave Pitts- burg by some circuitous route, or conceal themselves, that it might be given out publicly that they were gone.
In the mean time, Bradford and others, without a semblance of autho- rity, issued a circular, or order, to the colonels of militia in the western counties, requising them to assemble in arms at Braddock's field, for the ostensible purpose of pulling down the inspector's office, and banishing the traitors from Pittsburg. This order was signed I. Canon, B. Park- inson, D. Bradford, A. Fulton, T. Speers, J. Lochry, J. Marshall .- Strange to say, it was in many instances promptly obeyed : many who despised it at heart, did not dare to disobey it. Bradford afterwards de- nied that he gave such an order.
There were but three days between the date of the orders, and the time of the assemblage ; yet a vast and excited multitude was brought together, many in companies, under arms. Some were well-disposed towards the government, but came for fear of being proscribed ; others as mere spectators ; others, such as Hugh H. Breckenridge, and several from Pittsburg, to put themselves, if possible, under the mask of insur- rection, at the head of the multitude, and restrain them, by organization and management, from proceeding to open outrage and rebellion. Great apprehension was entertained that the insurgents might proceed to Pitts- burg, and burn the town. The obnoxious persons had been banished, as if by authority, in deference to the demands of the Tinker men ; and the Pittsburg delegation were careful to announce the fact at Brad- dock's field.
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