value that it was a common practice to grind the best quality and feed it to the cattle, while rye, corn and barley would bring no price as food for man or beast. The only way left for the inhabitants to obtain a little money to purchase salt, iron, and other articles necessary in carrying on their farms, was to distil their grain, reduce it into a more portable form, and send the whiskey over the mountains or down the Ohio River to Kentucky, which country was rapidly filling up and affording a market for that article. The lawfulness or morality of making and drinking whiskey was not in that day called in question. When Western Pennsylvania was in the condition described, the Federal Constitution was adopted and a most difficult problem was presented-how to provide ways and means to support the government, to pay just and pressing Revolutionary claims, and sustain an army to subdue the most powerful combination of Indians which ever threatened the frontiers.* By 1791 the farmers of Western Pennsylvania were more extensively engaged in the manufacture of whiskey than those of any other section of the country, being forced into the business by the necessities of the times and their geographical situation. It is therefore a tribute to the modera tion of their representatives that † the opposition to Secretary Hamilton's excise bill did not originate in the locality where it would oppress the most grievously, should it become law; for on the 22d of January, 1791, while it was pending before Congress, the House of Representatives of Pennsylvania, upon the motion of two members from the city of Philadelphia, adopted by a large majority resolutions expressive of their sense of the subject. The State Legislature declared that "no public emergency then existed to warrant the adoption of any species of taxation that would violate the rights which were the basis of government," referring in this manifesto to that portion of Section 8 of the nation's Constitution which for bids the unequal levying of duties, imposts or excises. In some States little or no manufacturing of spirits was attempted. Pennsylvania was the banner State, and Western Pennsylvania the banner section, in this industry. The farmers of the Commonwealth, who were in those times the distillers, therefore felt that the excise law would be by no means uniform in its workings, and that they had a battle to fight, not only on the ground of personal grievances, but of patriotic protest against the violation of the Constitution by the governing powers. Forty members voted in favor of the legislative resolutions and fifteen against them, some who were opposed * See Message Governor Thomas Mifflin, page 53, Vol. IV., Pa. Archives. to the excise law still doubting the propriety of the State to thus interfere with a Federal measure. General John Neville, afterward so prominent as Inspector of the Western Survey, voted with the majority. Before the bill was passed, however, the Southern and Western members of Congress proclaimed an organized agitation for its repeal, Wm. Findley, Congressman, and Albert Gallatin, then a private citizen of Westmoreland County, being especially prominent in the ranks of the opposition. But the representatives of the people never advocated a forcible resistance to the execution of the law, although some of them were afterward obliged to appear as acquiescing in rebellious acts of which they did not approve. The bill having become a law, March 3, 1791, the next step which the government was bound to take was to put the machinery in motion. Gen. Neville, who was among the leaders of the opposition to the State excise law, who is said to have remarked that Graham ought to have had his ears cut off, and who voted in favor of the legislative resolutions opposing Hamilton's bill, was appointed Inspector of the Western Survey, which comprised the counties of Fayette, Allegheny, Westmoreland, and Washington. The acceptance of this appointment, by which he bound himself to see that the unpopular law was enforced, created much indignation among the people of Western Pennsylvania, from whose hands he had received many public favors. They were the more irritated against him on being informed that he had expressed a contemptuous indifference as to the continuance of their good opinion of him, asserting that he was no longer dependent upon their favors, as he was now receiving a salary of "600 a year." The "600" passed among the people for "pounds"; and in those days the masses felt a great aversion toward salaried officers, even showing their contempt, in the most offensive ways, against the county judges. Although among the better informed Gen. Neville's salary is supposed to have been "$600," still his former supporters felt that they had just grounds for indignation, and were willing to believe the worst of him that they might whet their anger the more. He was a Virginian by birth, a brave officer under the lamented Braddock, and a warm friend, since youth, of Washington, with whom he fought and whose government he had firmly supported. When these facts have been stated, a reasonable explanation has doubtless been offered for his acceptance of a position which brought against him the charge of basely deserting his friends for "the emoluments of office." It is quite certain that his action, whatever its real significance, tended to concentrate the opposition, and to make the *Findley. hot-bed of the Insurrection that part of Washington County adjacent to the Monongahela and near the Inspector's residence. In the month bf June, during which was to be inaugurated the first year of the obnoxious law, no offices of inspectors at which the stills were to be entered were opened in the western counties. But the people were in great consternation, and held their first meeting at Redstone Old Fort (Brownsville) on the 27th of July. Col. Cook, elderly and discreet, a member of the first convention of Pennsylvania, the holder of various judicial positions in the western country, an ardent advocate for the adoption of the Federal Constitution and an earnest supporter of it-in fact, a man of sound judgment, "safe years," and generally respected, was elected chairman. Albert Gallatin, then a young, unmarried man of thirty, a friend of Patrick Henry, a farmer of Fayette County, who had already obtained a State reputation and was subsequently to be honored by the whole nation, was chosen secretary. Then, as ever, he was a staunch Republican or Democrat, but firmly attached to the government. In pursuance with the recommendations of this temperate and harmonious gathering, meetings were held in the different counties to elect delegates, who were to assemble in Pittsburgh during the month of September. The controlling spirit at the Washington County meeting was David Bradford, a lawyer of considerable ability; deputy Attorney-General of the State; formerly at the head of a revolutionary movement to erect a new State from the four counties of Western Pennsylvania and a portion of Virginia; and, all in all, possessed of the spirit of the demagogue who seeks by unworthy, even mischievous methods, to ride upon the waves of popular passion to his own advantage. The Washington County meeting resolved to treat with contempt every one who favored carrying the law into effect. Although it did not directly countenance violence against the excise officers, there is no doubt but that those turbulent souls who were inclined to tar and feather felt that they were upheld in spirit by the Washington County gathering, and David Bradford, its dashing leader. The deliberations of the Pittsburgh convention were controlled by cooler heads. Having considered the laws of the late Congress, they resolved that "in a very short time hasty strides have been made to all that is unjust and oppressive-the exorbitant salaries of officers," etc.; but more especially did they "bear testimony to what is a base offspring of the funding system, the excise law of Congress." The law was branded as obnoxious because it operated upon a domestic manufacture, highly beneficial in the then state of the country; was not uniform throughout the States, and "tended to introduce the excise laws of Great Britain, and of countries where the liberty, property, and even the morals of the people are sported with to gratify particular men in their ambitious and interested measures." The substance of the resolutions passed at the Pittsburgh meeting are given to enable the general reader to stand upon the ground occupied by the legal and logical opponents of the excise system. But the day before the gathering of the delegates the unlawful and violent inaugurated a series of antics which were continued, with more or less frequency, for four years, having for their object the driving of the officers from the country. The collectors had been fairly established in the western counties, while their agents and informers were abroad in the land. The people were too impatient, too fearful even, to await the righting of their wrongs by "due process of law," or to exercise their mild "right of petition." Besides, as is the case in every new, fertile, growing country, there were numbers of adventurous and restless spirits who were ripe for a revolution, considering it little more serious than a frolic on a large and exciting scale. It would really seem that although many opposed the laws from feelings of patriotism and self-preservation, many also acted the part of boys bent upon the perpetration of practical jokes upon a class of obnoxious men, fortunately (?) thrown into their hands. The collector for Allegheny and Washington counties, the first victim of the mob, was tarred and feathered, his hair cut off, his horse taken away, and he left to tramp home in this pitiable plight. Several persons were proceeded against for the outrage, but the deputy-marshal dared not serve the processes, while a simple-minded cattle driver, who was induced to assume the responsibility, was whipped, tarred and feathered, blindfolded, and tied to a tree, where he remained five hours. These are fair samples of the scores of cases which occurred during the succeeding two years. The stills of those who were known to have submitted to the law, or who were discovered to have "compounded," or compromised secretly with the collectors, were broken up and burned. Many law-abiding distillers, who were also proprietors of small grist or saw mills, had pieces of their machinery carried off, and sometimes the whole building torn down. Excise men were ordered to deliver up their commissions on pain of bodily harm and the destruction of their barns and houses. Some were tarred and feathered and tied to trees -this seemed the favorite amusement of these grim jokers. Some were taken out of their beds, bound, led to blacksmith shops, and burned in various parts of their bodies with hot irons. Thus were the officers of the government harassed and persecuted; but, so far as known, no outrage was committed upon a civil officer of the law. In May, 1792, the government had lightened the excise duties and in VOL. XII.-No. 4.-22 September the President issued a proclamation informing the distillers of his determination to prosecute delinquents, to seize unexcised spirits on their way to market, and to make no purchases for the army except of that which had paid the duty. But whether the government showed a spirit of compromise or a stern resolve to uphold laws which had never been repealed, the effect still seemed to be to whet the anger of the hot-blooded opposition. They continued to perform the most humorous acts, never, however, quite killing a poor exciseman with their practical jokes. Those who still claimed merely "the right of petition" to Congress now forbore to call their meetings in Pittsburgh, or elsewhere, and the boys apparently had the game in their own hands. During the latter portion of their reign of lawlessness they enrolled themselves under so ridiculous a banner that, had President Washington possessed a particle of humor, he might have forgiven them for all their past conduct. Some time in 1793, a certain man had made himself obnoxious by entering his still at the excise office. His building was thereupon cut to pieces, which process was humorously called "mending" it. The "menders" were, by a further stretch of fancy, called "tinkers." Each mender was a tinker, and then and there the opposition to the excise laws labeled itself "Tom the Tinker." On the forest trees commenced to appear threatening letters, signed by "Tom the Tinker." "Tom the Tinker's" awful chirography stared scores of offending distillers, excisemen and Government informers from the sides of barns and houses, ordering them to enroll themselves under his banner, surrender their commissions, or publish a card admitting their submission to his authority in the Pittsburgh Gazette. The mob element had surely assumed a party name which had the ring of democracy to it; and it is actually a fact that "Tom the Tinker" came to be applied, with due seriousness and respect, to any one who was known to be opposed to the laws-to even such orderly gentlemen as Albert Gallatin, Edward Cook, H. H. Brackenridge and William Findley. (The two latter were members of the Assembly from Allegheny and Westmoreland counties.) Liberty poles also were raised in the disaffected region by this mischievous "Will-o'-the-Wisp," from which flaunted such inscriptions as "An equal tax and no excise," and "United we stand, divided we fall." But very soon the popular frenzy, marshaled under the shadow of the impersonal "Tom," commenced to be directed by individuals. During the winter of 1793-94, when the laws appeared to be gaining ground, and many of the distillers had signified their intention to abide by them, an association was formed in the vicinity of Inspector Neville's home, which, by the most violent, was considered as friendly to "Tom the |
