In the 1700's this region of Pennsylvania lay on the nation's western frontier, where most settlers lived in log cabins built from local trees cut down and notched to fit together, frontiersmen wore belted hunting frocks, soft-brimmed wool felt hats, leggings, pipe pouches, and haversacks, and grain including rye, barley, and corn was ground at local gristmills and distilled into whiskey through fermenting mash and heating it in copper stills. Farmers on the western frontier had several grievances with the federal government, but the Whiskey Excise Tax of 1791 on their main trade commodity was considered so unfair that they rebelled, refusing to pay and attacking tax collectors while raising liberty poles with flags and banners. Attorney David Bradford became a leading figure in the insurrection. The rebellion peaked in the summer of 1794 when a U.S. Marshal tried to serve a writ for the arrest of farmer William Miller, rebels marched to the home of tax inspector John Neville, and a two-day battle ended with the property burned. President George Washington, with General Henry Lee and Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, led a federal militia of almost 13,000 soldiers to stop the uprising, and faced with that force the rebels gave up. David Bradford escaped downriver to Spanish West Florida several days before Hamilton arrived looking for him. On November 13, 1794, in "The Dreadful Night," federal militia dragged 150 frontiersmen from their beds and arrested them for crimes connected to the collapsed rebellion; judges who had accompanied the army tried or released those accused of minor crimes, twenty were taken to Philadelphia and remained jailed until spring 1795, two were found guilty of treason, all were eventually pardoned by President Washington, and Bradford, never arrested, was pardoned by President Adams in 1799.
