It is February 8th. Welcome to Episode 39 of History in a Year. Today, we travel to the wild frontier of Western Pennsylvania, where the spirit of 1776 is alive and well… and armed. Alexander Hamilton has passed a tax on whiskey to pay off the national debt. But for the farmers of the west, whiskey isn’t just a drink; it is their currency, their livelihood, and their only way to survive. We watch as tax collectors are tarred and feathered, barns are burned, and a mob of 500 angry veterans attacks a federal general’s house, sparking the first true challenge to the authority of the United States.
STEPHEN: Welcome to History in a Year: America’s First 250 Years.
LEAH: Join us every single day as we journey from the Revolution of 1776 to the 250th anniversary of the United States.
STEPHEN: You can find every episode and join the discussion at PointedWords.com. I’m Stephen.
LEAH: And I’m Leah.
STEPHEN: It is February 8th. Welcome to Episode 39. We have spent the last few days in the halls of power in Philadelphia and the cotton fields of Georgia. But today, we are heading West.
LEAH: And in 1794, “The West” didn’t mean California. It meant Pittsburgh.
STEPHEN: Western Pennsylvania was the frontier. It was separated from the civilized East by the Appalachian Mountains. It was a hard, dangerous place. The people there were mostly Scots-Irish immigrants, veterans of the Revolution, and poor farmers.
LEAH: They felt ignored by the government in Philadelphia. They had no roads. They were constantly fighting Native Americans. And they had no money.
STEPHEN: I mean that literally. There was almost no paper cash or gold coin in the West. So, they used a different kind of currency.
LEAH: Whiskey.
STEPHEN: This is the key to understanding today’s episode. Whiskey—specifically Monongahela Rye—was “liquid currency.”
LEAH: Here is the economics of it: If you are a farmer in Pittsburgh, you grow grain (rye or corn). But you can’t ship that grain to Philadelphia. It’s too heavy, the roads are mud, and it will rot before it gets there.
STEPHEN: But… if you distill that grain into whiskey? Suddenly, it’s valuable. It doesn’t rot. It’s compact. A single horse can carry 24 bushels of grain if it’s turned into liquid.
LEAH: So, farmers distilled their surplus grain. They used whiskey to pay the doctor, buy salt, and trade for shoes. Everyone drank it—men, women, even children. It was safer than the water.
STEPHEN: Enter Alexander Hamilton.
LEAH: Hamilton—sitting in his office in Philadelphia—needed money. Remember, he had “Assumed” the state debts (Episode 32). Now he had to pay the interest on that debt.
STEPHEN: Import tariffs weren’t enough. So, in 1791, he proposed an Excise Tax on Distilled Spirits.
LEAH: Hamilton thought this was a “luxury tax.” He thought, “People don’t need to drink whiskey. If they do, they can pay a few cents per gallon.”
STEPHEN: But to the Westerners, this wasn’t a luxury tax. It was an income tax. It was a tax on their money itself.
LEAH: And the law was rigged.
STEPHEN: This is the part that really made them angry. The tax law favored big distillers in the East. Big guys could pay a “flat fee” upfront, which worked out to about 6 cents a gallon.
LEAH: But the small farmers in the West? They had to pay by the gallon—about 9 cents. And they had to pay in cash. Which, as we just said, they didn’t have!
STEPHEN: So, if you couldn’t pay the tax, the federal officer would seize your still. Or take your land. And if you wanted to fight it in court? You had to travel 300 miles to Philadelphia for the trial.
LEAH: To the Westerners, this looked exactly like the Stamp Act. It was “Taxation Without Representation” all over again.
STEPHEN: They said, “We just fought a revolution to get rid of a distant government taxing us. Why is George Washington doing the same thing King George did?”
LEAH: So, they did what Americans do. They organized.
STEPHEN: At first, it was peaceful. They held meetings. They wrote petitions. But Hamilton ignored them. He called their arguments “unreasonable.”
LEAH: So, the violence started.
STEPHEN: In September 1791, a tax collector named Robert Johnson was riding through the woods. A gang of men stopped him. They cut off his hair. They stripped him naked. And they tarred and feathered him.
LEAH: We often think of “tar and feathering” as a cartoonish prank. It’s not. It is torture.
STEPHEN: They pour hot, boiling pine tar over your skin. It burns like napalm. Then they roll you in feathers. When the tar cools, it hardens. Trying to peel it off takes your skin with it. It leaves permanent scars.
LEAH: Johnson was left in the woods to die. He survived, but he was ruined.
STEPHEN: The violence escalated. Anyone who paid the tax was targeted. Farmers who cooperated found holes shot in their stills. Or they woke up to find their barns on burning.
LEAH: They started signing their threats with a fake name: “Tom the Tinker.”
STEPHEN: “If you pay the tax, Tom the Tinker will mend your still.” (Which meant, he would smash it with a hammer).
LEAH: By 1794, the entire region was in open rebellion. No tax collector dared to enter Western Pennsylvania.
STEPHEN: Hamilton was furious. He told Washington, “We have to crush this. If the government can’t collect taxes, it’s not a government.”
LEAH: So, they sent a federal marshal to serve subpoenas to 60 farmers who hadn’t paid. He was guided by a wealthy local landowner named General John Neville.
STEPHEN: Neville was a Revolutionary War hero. He had actually opposed the tax at first! But then he got the job of Inspector of Revenue. He turned traitor to his neighbors.
LEAH: On July 16, 1794, a mob of 50 angry men surrounded Neville’s house at Bower Hill. They demanded the marshal surrender. Neville fired a warning shot… and killed a rebel named Oliver Miller.
STEPHEN: The mob retreated. But they came back the next day.
LEAH: And this time, they brought an army.
STEPHEN: 500 men. Led by a veteran named James McFarlane. They marched on Bower Hill with drums beating and flags flying.
LEAH: Neville had fortified his house. He had armed his slaves. And a squad of 10 federal soldiers had arrived to help him.
STEPHEN: A firefight broke out. It was a full-blown battle. The rebels set fire to the barn, then the slave quarters, and finally the main house.
LEAH: General Neville barely escaped, hiding in a ravine. The soldiers surrendered. But James McFarlane—the rebel leader—was shot dead when he stepped out under a white flag.
STEPHEN: This enraged the crowd. They burned Neville’s mansion to the ground. They drank his wine cellar dry.
LEAH: The Rebellion had begun. This wasn’t a protest anymore. It was treason.
STEPHEN: The rebels started gathering at a place called Braddock’s Field. 7,000 men. They talked about marching on Pittsburgh and burning it to the ground. They talked about declaring independence from the United States.
LEAH: News of the battle at Bower Hill reached Philadelphia in August.
STEPHEN: George Washington sat at his desk. He had spent eight years fighting a war to build this country. Now, his own soldiers—men he had led!—were shooting at his officers.
LEAH: He had a choice. He could negotiate. Or… he could remind them who he was.
STEPHEN: Join us tomorrow for Episode 40. The Whiskey Rebellion (Part 2). George Washington puts his uniform back on. He rides west at the head of 13,000 troops—an army larger than the one he led in the Revolution. We see the only time a sitting US President has ever led troops in the field, and the anti-climactic end to the insurrection.
LEAH: I’m Leah.
STEPHEN: And I’m Stephen.
STEPHEN: You can find every episode at PointedWords.com. And this… is our story.