Monette, John W. History of the Discovery and Settlement of the Valley of the Mississippi, by the Three Great European Powers, Spain, France and Great Britain, and the Subsequent Occupation, Settlement, and Extension of Civil Government by the United States, Until the Year 1846, in two volumes, Volume II . New York: Harper and Brothers, Publishers, 1846. [format: book], [genre: history]. Permission: Schingoethe Center for Native American Cultures, Aurora University
Persistent link to this document: http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/file.php?file=monette2.html

Argument. — Jurisdiction of Pennsylvania extended to the Ohio. — "Westmoreland County" organized. — "Washington County" organized. — Emigration to the Monongahela and Youghiogeny. — Town of Pittsburgh laid out. — Brownsville laid out; becomes an important Point. — First Newspaper in the West. — Pittsburgh becomes a Market Town in 1788. — Trade and Manufactures spring up. — It derives great Importance as a military Dépôt in 1790. — Prosperous Condition of Settlements on the Monongahela. — Pittsburgh becomes an important manufacturing and trading Town. — Agricultural Prosperity of Monongahela Settlements. — Effects of Spanish Restrictions on the Mississippi. — "Excise Law" odious. — Disaffection toward Federal Government. — French Influence in the West. — Resistance to Excise on Whisky. — Difficulties encountered by excise Officers. — General Neville appointed Superintendent of excise Customs. — His moral Worth and Popularity insufficient to sustain him. — His House burned by a Mob. — Other Outrages perpetrated by the Mob. — Character of the Insurgents. — A Meeting of the Militia. — A Convention proposed. — Measures adopted by the President of the United States. — Proposed Amnesty. — Convention at Parkinson's Ferry. — Alarm of the insurgent Leaders. — Effects of General Wayne's Victory on the Maumee. — Commissioners appointed by the President. — Troops levied to suppress the Insurrection. — Fourteen thousand Troops advance to Pittsburgh. — The Insurrection is suppressed. — Insurgents dispersed. — Inquisitorial Court established. — Three hundred Insurgents arrested. — The Troops discharged. — Pittsburgh incorporated in 1794. — Quietude of Frontiers, and Advance of Population. — Uninhabited Region west of Alleghany River. — Emigration encouraged. — "Population Company." — Their Grant. — State Grants to actual Settlers. — Conflict of State Grants with the Company's Privileges. — First Paper Mill on the Monongahela. — Manufactures increase.

[A.D. 1783.] WE have already remarked, that in the early settlement of the country west of the mountains, before the close of the Revolutionary war, the northern and southern limits of Virginia were not clearly defined and known. Virginia, however, was prompt in asserting her right to all the territory which was supposed to lie within her chartered limits on the west. It was not until the year 1780 that her southern boundary, separating her from North Carolina, had been surveyed from the mountains westward to the Mississippi.

Her northern boundary next to Pennsylvania had not been properly ascertained and designated until several years afterward.

Previous to running this line, Virginia had claimed, and had exercised, jurisdiction over Western Pennsylvania as far north as Fort Pitt, which was claimed as a post of the Old Dominion. Emigrants from Virginia and Maryland had formed settlements, and had introduced their slave property, believing themselves within the jurisdiction of Virginia. Hundreds of the best citizens, who had settled on the Youghiogeny and Monongahela Rivers, afterward finding themselves in Pennsylvania by the line of demarcation, were compelled to retire, with their slaves, to Western Virginia and to Kentucky, where they would be protected in their property by the laws of Virginia.

After the southern line of Pennsylvania had been fully designated, the Legislature proceeded to organize the country thus detached from Virginia into two counties, called Westmoreland and Washington. Westmoreland county extended from the mountains westward to the Alleghany River, including the town of Pittsburgh and all the country between the Kiskeminetas and the Youghiogeny. North of this was the Indian territory, in the possession of the native tribes. Washington county comprised all south and west of Pittsburgh, including all the country east and west of the Monongahela, now comprised in the counties of Washington, Green, Alleghany, and Fayette.

[A.D. 1784.] After the close of the Revolutionary war, the tide of immigration set with double force into the region west of the mountains. Besides hundreds of families who had suffered in their fortunes by the war, there were thousands of soldiers and officers of the Continental army, who, now disbanded, were compelled to seek homes in the West, and provide for their growing families.

As late as the year 1784, Fort Pitt was a frontier post, and the region contiguous was quite unprotected. The Indian tribes occupied the country on the north and west, and their numbers and prowess rendered them terrible to the weak settlements. The town of Pittsburgh, which had sprung up near the fort, was a frontier trading place, frequented by hundreds of friendly Indians in time of peace, eager to barter their furs, skins, and bear's grease for the rude staples of a trader's stock

of goods. The Alleghany River was the Indian boundary, and in time of peace the Indian trade brought to the town hundreds of canoes and pirogues, by means of which a regular intercourse was maintained with remote towns in the country still in possession of the natives.

After the jurisdiction of Pennsylvania was formally extended over the southwestern portion of the state in the organization of counties, population began to press forward into the most exposed points contiguous to the Indian boundary, and the village of Pittsburgh now assumed the form of a regular American town. It was in the month of May, 1784, that Colonel George Woods, agent for the proprietors and heirs of William Penn, to whom the land belonged, as a portion of one of the manors of the original grantee, first surveyed and laid out the regular plan of a town, which was called Pittsburgh. ²¹²

About the same time, the settlement at "Red Stone Old Fort" had become an important point of embarkation for emigrants to Kentucky, and bid fair to be the future seat of trade for the western country. In the spring of the same year, Thomas and Basil Brown, from Maryland, having purchased the claim formerly belonging to Captain Michael Cresap, including the "Old Fort," deemed it a suitable point for a town. In May, 1785, they laid off a plot near the "Old Fort," and called it by its present name of "Brownsville." ²¹³ Thus began the oldest town on the Monongahela.

[A.D. 1785.] The situation of this place, as the point to which nearly the whole western emigration concentrated previous to its descent of the Ohio, soon gave to Brownsville a trade and importance unknown then to any town in the West. Before the close of the year 1786, its population had increased to five hundred souls. ²¹⁴ Many of these were engaged in the mechanic arts which contribute chiefly to boat-building, and supply the rude necessaries for barge and flat-boat navigation. Emigrants who designed taking water at Wheeling, where the voyage to Kentucky would be shortened one hundred and sixty miles, were still obliged to take Brownsville in their route, and here supply themselves for their future journey. This produced a necessity for mercantile houses, provided with the articles indispensable to the emigrants.

Heretofore the western settlers had been compelled to send their annual "caravans" across the mountains to Fort Cumberland, Hagerstown, Frederictown, or some other point, for all their supplies, which were transported upon pack-horses several hundred miles to the West. But this usage was now about to cease, and be superseded by regular commercial houses at Brownsville, which could supply the emigrants with implements of agriculture, provisions, salt, iron, and other articles indispensable in a new country.

[A.D. 1787.] By the following year, several mercantile houses were established, and supplied with goods hauled in wagons across the mountains from Forts Cumberland and Ligonier. These tended to give additional importance to Brownsville, as a point of embarkation for the West. Emigrants could carry money with less inconvenience than the heavy articles for which they could exchange it at the end of their journey. Of course, money would seek its way to the West, instead of being carried to the East.

A good wagon road had been opened to Brownsville from the East, and a regular line of freight-wagons from Baltimore and Frederictown had been established, each wagon making the trip to Brownsville and back, with full loads, once a month. The cost of transportation over this route was generally three dollars per hundred weight, and the great numbers of emigrants to the West soon opened a profitable commerce between these remote points. The same cause soon made Brownsville one of the most active trading and manufacturing towns in the West. The demand for mechanics and manufacturers of a certain class brought great numbers of adventurers from the East in search of profitable employment. The great demand was for carpenters and boat-builders, to supply conveyance for the hundreds of emigrants who arrived every week, seeking boats of all kinds for the voyage to Kentucky and Western Virginia, as well as to the Northwestern Territory. The boat-building and the boating business soon became an important branch of western enterprise. Hundreds of arks, keels, barges, and every variety of boats, kept up a constant intercourse between the Monongahela and the settlements on the Ohio below, and also with the city of New Orleans, and the rich settlements on the Lower Mississippi. ²¹⁵

In the mean time, Pittsburgh had been rapidly increasing its population and business. Already a printing-office had been established by John Scull and Joseph Hall, two industrious young men, who had embarked their whole means in the enterprise. On the 29th of July, 1786, they had issued the first number of the "Pittsburgh Gazette," and the first newspaper printed west of the mountains, ²¹⁶ and more than a year before the first newspaper was printed in Kentucky. It was not until March, 1787, that a town meeting in Pittsburgh first resolved to establish a weekly market, and to erect a market-house.

[A.D. 1788.] As late as the year 1788, Pittsburgh was a small frontier town, thirty miles distant from the county seat of Westmoreland county, to which it pertained. Hannahstown was the county seat, to which the people of Pittsburgh had to repair on county business, twelve miles east of Chestnut Ridge. On the 24th of September of that year they were released from these journeys by the organization of "Alleghany county," taken from Westmoreland and Washington counties. From that time Pittsburgh became the county seat for Alleghany county, ²¹⁷ and began to assume importance as a trading and manufacturing town; mercantile and trading establishments began to appear, mechanics flocked to it for employment, and manufactures and trade began to extend. The inhabitants on the Monongahela and Yough had already found agriculture a profitable employment; and the produce of their fields, in the form of flour, whisky, and other surplus products of a new country, had already passed Pittsburgh, and found its way down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans. A new class of hardy pioneers, under the name of "boatmen," now sprang up, who carried the products of the Monongahela and its tributaries to the more recent settlements of Kentucky, and to the Spanish provinces of Louisiana and West Florida. Thus commenced the first regular trade between Pittsburgh and New Orleans.

Manufactures had already begun to flourish in Western Pennsylvania. Iron had been found in great abundance from its first settlement, and the great demand for it, connected with the difficulty of transporting it from the east side of the mountains, soon prompted the erection of furnaces and iron-works. The first blast-furnace west of the mountains was "Union Furnace"

on Dunbar Creek, fifteen miles east of Brownsville. It was erected by Colonel Isaac Meason, John Gibson, and Moses Dillon. The increasing population in the West, and especially in Kentucky, created a demand which caused others to spring up in different sections of the country. Forges were erected for the manufacture of bar iron. A few years elapsed, when more than twenty forges were in operation upon the waters of the Monongahela. ²¹⁸ As these multiplied, they gave rise to every variety of factories for the manufacture of iron into the implements of husbandry, house-building, and all the mechanic arts. Excellent mills and machinery of all kinds, propelled by water power, were early introduced upon all the branches of the Yough, from its sources near the Laurel Hill to its junction with the Monongahela. The same valuable manufactories had extended down Cheat River, from its sources near the Alleghany range in Virginia down the Monongahela to Brownsville.

[A.D. 1789.] Notwithstanding the treaties concluded by the United States with the northwestern tribes of Indians in the year 1785-80, they became impatient of the advance of the whites upon the Ohio and Alleghany Rivers. Settlements had already been made upon the west side of the Ohio, and the natives plainly foresaw their approaching destruction. For several years past lawless bands of savages had infested the Ohio River, committing frequent murders and robberies upon the emigrants, who were continually descending the river to Kentucky. The main body of the tribes had scarcely refrained from similar acts of hostility; and now these aggressions, on the part of the Indians, had become so frequent and audacious, that it was evident that a general hostile movement of the savages against the advancing settlements was contemplated. To avoid any such occurrence, negotiations had been resorted to ineffectually, and the Federal government had resolved to invade the Indian country with a strong military force.

[A.D. 1790.] At length, early in the year 1790, troops began to advance from the east by way of Bedford and Cumberland, and to concentrate at Fort Pitt, as a general rendezvous and dépôt for military stores and munitions of war, preparatory to an invasion of the Indian country west of the Ohio. ²¹⁹ It was at this time that the town of Pittsburgh began to assume a

degree of importance heretofore unknown. It became the general store-house for all the western posts, and the grand dépôt for the western army. It was also the point at which military supplies were procured, and where the principal disbursements of public moneys were made for the use of the army, as well as the distribution of annuities and supplies for the friendly Indian tribes.

[A.D. 1791.] As yet the Alleghany River was the remote frontier limit of the Pennsylvania settlements, and all its northwestern tributaries were wholly within the Indian country. A few settlements had been made near the river for forty miles above Pittsburgh by the more fearless and inconsiderate. But they paid with their lives the forfeit of their temerity. The whole of these settlements were broken up about the 9th of February, 1791, soon after the outbreak of the Indian war. On that day the settlements were simultaneously assailed and exterminated by one hundred and fifty warriors, distributed in bands assigned for the extermination of their respective neighborhoods. The settlements in this quarter were entirely broken up; some were killed, some were taken prisoners, and others escaped with their lives. ²²⁰

[A.D. 1792.] Notwithstanding all the difficulties encountered in the West, the settlements on the Yough and Monongahela, comprised in the western portions of Pennsylvania and Virginia, had become prosperous and enterprising. They had extended arts and manufactures, and were rapidly increasing in numbers. The manufacture of iron had become extensive; smelting-furnaces, forges, and founderies existed in every important settlement, and the hills yielded abundance of ore. Agriculture had increased, until scarcity and want had been driven from the settlements, and the Ohio formed a magnificent outlet for their surplus products of all kinds to the new settlements, which were rapidly extending into Kentucky and the northwestern territory. Such was the abundance of the agricultural products and of manufactures, that the new settlements on the lower tributaries of the Ohio failed to afford an adequate market, and the more enterprising extended their trading voyages to the rich settlements of Spain on the Lower Mississippi. Thus a commerce, which had first sprung up in 1786, in five years had become an important item in the prosperity

of Western Pennsylvania. To diminish the proportionate cost of transportation for corn, rye, and other grains and products, these articles were converted into whisky, which could be sent to all parts of the world through the great avenue of the Ohio and Mississippi. Thus the value of thousands of bushels of these grains was contained in the small bulk of a few barrels of whisky, and an equal quantity was withdrawn from the grain-market. The fame of their favorite drink, "Old Monongahela", extended not only to the whole western settlements, but also to New Orleans, the Atlantic States, and to Europe. Horses, cattle, and blooded stock from the Atlantic seaboard had been introduced upon the Monongahela, and had also become an important item of western trade for the supply of the new settlements lower down the Ohio, in the Northwestern Territory, and those of Louisiana. Rude castings of all descriptions, cutlery of every variety, adapted to the use of new settlements, such as axes, hoes, drawing-knives, carpenters' tools, knives and forks, scythe-blades, reaping-hooks, and the like, were made in great abundance for the supply of the extending settlements. Navigation on the Ohio assumed an importance hitherto unknown. Besides the endless variety of small craft, and the rude arks, or "Kentucky flats," numerous well-built keel-boats, barges, and some sea vessels were conveying the produce of this region to every portion of the Ohio region; and, in return from Louisiana, supplying the commercial points with the products of the West Indies and the specie of Mexico by way of New Orleans.

It was in the year 1792 that the Spanish authorities began to embarrass this trade by the imposition of transit and port duties, which greatly reduced the profits, and sometimes resulted in the entire loss of vessel and cargo by confiscation. The western people, conscious that the free navigation of the Mississippi would greatly promote their prosperity and extend the field of their enterprise, had vainly looked to the Federal government for relief from the Spanish imposts and the arbitrary exactions of a despotic government. They expected from the Federal government, through commercial treaties with Spain, an exemption from duties upon a river, the use of which they claimed as a natural right, growing out of their relative situation and occupancy. In these respects, their condition was identical with the settlements upon the great southern tributaries of the Ohio.

[A.D. 1793.] The prevalence of eastern influence in Congress and in the cabinet of the United States was strong, and swayed the national policy as to measures affecting the western people, and these measures operated no less perniciously upon them than if they had been prompted by interested jealousy in the Atlantic States. The Spanish authorities of Louisiana had been permitted for years to obstruct and embarrass the river trade, which fell heavy upon the people of Western Pennsylvania, as well as upon those of Kentucky and Cumberland, while the commerce of the Atlantic ports was favored with a more liberal policy; and, as if to increase their burdens, Congress, in 1790, had passed a law imposing excise duties upon all spirituous liquors distilled in the United States, when it was well known that the most extensive and most important distilleries were those on the waters of the Monongahela, where the surplus grain was worthless unless it could be converted into whisky and other distilled spirits.

Besides these disadvantages, the whole burden of the Indian war, which had been improvidently planned and injudiciously conducted for more than three years, had fallen chiefly upon the western settlements. While these things were operating to weaken the ties which bound the western people to those east of the mountains, the Spanish authorities of Louisiana, sagaciously perceiving the error of the Federal government, lost no opportunity to augment the embarrassments and stimulate the discontent, while they held out in prospect ultimate relief from the Spanish crown, by a separation from the Federal Union and an alliance with Louisiana. Congress beheld the cloud in the West: the loud murmurs from the commercial classes, the open denunciations from the exposed frontiers, the spirit of insurrection in the grain districts against the iniquitous excise, convinced the Federal government that they were daily losing the confidence of the western people, and absolving them from their allegiance.

The Indian war had been waged with but little success for some time, and at great expense to the general government. The war was for the protection of the western people especially, and more particularly for those of Western Pennsylvania and Virginia. These people were the principal sufferers from Indian barbarity and revenge. They, too, were called on chiefly to fill the ranks of the armies which had been sent

against the savages, until they began loudly to complain of the burdens which were thrown upon them, while the East reaped the advantages of their labors. The western people, although ardent friends of the Federal Union, could not submit to oppression by an unjust exercise of Federal power, and the attempt to enforce it roused them to resistance.

The impost upon whisky, distilled from grain in a country where grain was a surplus article, was tantamount to a tax upon grain itself, and operated oppressively upon the West. In the eastern counties and Atlantic States grain was not a surplus product; of course, but little of it could be distilled into spirits; consequently, the tax fell entirely upon the western people, who were otherwise embarrassed in their commerce. The enforcement of the law for collecting the revenue was considered as indicative of a disposition in the Federal government to usurp the powers of the states toward the formation of a consolidated government, whose controlling power would be east of the mountains.

The western people had become prejudiced against the Federal government, not only because the frontier settlements had been left for years exposed to Indian hostilities, almost unprotected by the national power from 1787 to 1790, but because the protection extended subsequently had been ineffectual, and had resulted in two disgraceful defeats, with the loss of many lives and great expense, without any equivalent advantage, chiefly for want of a liberal appropriation by Congress. Another cause of discontent, closely connected with Indian depredations, was the temporizing policy of the Federal government with the court of St. James, in permitting the continued occupancy of the western posts, for more than ten years after the time stipulated for their delivery, agreeably to the treaty of 1783. The whole Indian war had been the result of intrigue between agents and emissaries from the British posts along the Canada frontier, whose avowed object was to check the advance of population northwest of the Ohio.

Another prominent cause of dissatisfaction in Western Pennsylvania was the inefficient policy of the Federal government in submitting to Spanish usurpations on the Mississippi, object of which was to embarrass the western people. Not only had Spain claimed the exclusive navigation of the river, but she held possession of the country on the east bank as far north

as the Chickasâs Bluffs, nearly five hundred miles by the river above the boundary established by the treaty of 1783.

To encourage the dissatisfaction of the western people on this point, French emissaries, under the authority of the French minister, Genet, were sent to the West to foment discord and to instigate a hostile expedition against the Spanish provinces, under the patronage and authority of the French Republic, which promised to open to them the free navigation of the river, when once under the dominion of France. "Democratic clubs," or societies, under French influence, were organized in many parts of the country, with the avowed object of opposing the general measures of the Federal administration in the West. Their resolutions openly denounced the excise on distilled spirits, and the acts of the government in its attempts to enforce the law. Newspapers, filled with inflammatory speeches by members of Congress favorable to the French party, were circulated with great industry through every town and settlement, while the friends of the administration, the advocates of the Federal authorities, were few and odious.

[A.D. 1794.] Such was the state of feeling in Western Pennsylvania, which had developed itself gradually and progressively for nearly four years after the passage of the law taxing distilleries, and generally known as the "excise law."

A feeling of resistance had been manifested from the first passage of the law in 1790; and the president, aware of its pernicious tendency, had recommended a modification of its obnoxious features at the next succeeding session. Congress adopted the suggestion, and modified the law in 1791. But this concession was not sufficient; it seemed rather to strengthen opposition. The people demanded its unconditional repeal, and every expedient was resorted to for the purpose of defeating its operation. Many refused to pay the duties in any form, and resistance to the Federal government already began to assume the form of rebellion. The president proceeded to enforce the law; but, as far as practicable, he omitted no opportunity to strip the law of its obnoxious features, and sought to allay excitement and to conciliate opposition by the influence and popularity of those who were charged with its execution.

For this purpose, General John Neville was appointed collector for Western Pennsylvania, and he accepted the appointment from a sense of public duty. He accepted, however,

at the hazard of his life and the loss of all his property; for he became the object of public indignation and the victim of an incensed community. All his former Revolutionary services, and his well-known benevolence and charity to the suffering frontier people for years past, were insufficient to shield him from popular indignation.

General Neville had been one of the most zealous patriots of the Revolution, a man of great wealth and unbounded benevolence. From his own resources alone, he had organized, equipped, and supplied a company of troops, including his son as an officer, which he had marched at his own expense to Boston, to re-enforce the command of General Washington in support of the Declaration of Independence. During the "starving years" of the early settlements on the Upper Ohio and Monongahela, he had contributed greatly to the relief and comfort of the destitute and suffering pioneers; and, when necessary, he had divided his last loaf with the needy. In seasons of more than ordinary scarcity, when his wheat matured, he had opened his fields to those who were destitute of bread. By blood and marriage he was related to some of the most distinguished officers of the Revolutionary armies; and such was his popularity in the West, that, had it been possible for any one to have enforced this odious law, General Neville was the man.

Having entered upon the duties of his office as collector, he appointed his deputies from among the most popular of his fellow-citizens, who proceeded to execute the law. But the first attempts were resisted. They were warned to desist, and to resign their thankless office. Some of the deputies, disregarding this admonition, were seized by the mob, and invested with "a coat of tar and feathers;" others were compelled to surrender their commissions, as the only condition of safety.

The malcontents soon proceeded to acts of open violence. Simple resistance assumed the attitude of revolt and insurrection. A mob of several hundred men proceeded to the house of General Neville and demanded the surrender of his commission; but, finding his house defended by ample force, they retired without violence. Believing that there was in the country sufficient patriotism to enable the civil authorities to sustain him and protect him in the discharge of his official duties, he continued to maintain his position. But he was mistaken:

the magistrates, who are but the emanations of popular will, as the ministers of civil liberty, were powerless in resisting the current of public displeasure. Their authority in support of the obnoxious law was set at defiance.

In the mean time, the feeling of excitement continued to increase in violence, and spread into every section of the country, and the civil authorities were utterly powerless in restraining the progress of disorder and outrage. Public meetings were held by the disaffected at Pittsburg, Brownsville, Parkinson's Ferry, "Braddock's Fields," and other places.

Many who never designed to resist the laws of the country had indirectly aided in raising a political storm which they could neither allay nor direct. The western country for many years had been receiving a large increase of population from Irish emigrants, no strangers to popular outbreaks in their native country. There was also a floating population, who had found employment heretofore in guarding the frontiers from Indian incursions, or as supernumeraries attached to the campaigns during the Indian wars, who were fond of excitement and commotion. These, as they could lose nothing by insurrection, swelled the amount of the insurgents, and their numbers gave a preponderance in favor of violent measures, against the wishes of those who were more considerate. Organized resistance to law was formed. Public meetings were held in all the malcontent districts, and officers were appointed to take the lead. Several hundred men volunteered to take General Neville into immediate custody. His friends in Pittsburgh devised plans for his protection; but it was the strength of a few men to arrest the advance of the avalanche. His house was protected by an armed guard of fifteen regular soldiers; but on the 15th of July, 1794, it was surrounded by five hundred men, organized into a lawless mob.

On the approach of the insurgents, the general, with his servant, had consented to retire from the mob. They advanced, and demanded the surrender of the general and his papers. The refusal brought on a contest, and some were killed. The outbuildings were set on fire; and the party within the splendid mansion house surrendered, to prevent its destruction. But it was in vain; the demon was unchained, and the hospitable mansion was consumed to ashes, in the view of hundreds who had shared his bounty or had enjoyed his benevolence. Insubordination

walked abroad at noon-day; all law was disregarded; the peaceable and orderly members of society became obnoxious to the enraged mob and their adherents. The mail was boldly robbed, and disclosed letters which added new victims to the lawless rage. The United States marshal was compelled to escape for his life down the Ohio.

Soon afterward, a public meeting of the militia was called by the insurgents at "Braddock's Fields," and seven or eight thousand obeyed the summons. Resolutions were passed, and a committee was appointed to consult and devise measures for future action. Without a resolute and able chief, no plan of operation could be adopted; and after various efforts to act, the discordant materials of the faction began to lose its cohesive properties, and dissolution followed soon afterward. Law and order once more resumed the sway, and the guilty dreaded the recompense of their deeds. The subject was referred to a convention of delegates from the several towns for a decision as to future proceedings. ²²¹

In the mean time, the President of the United States, reluctant to use the force of arms in quelling the insurrection, had sent three commissioners to the western country, to offer pardon from the general government to all offenders who should return to their duty and peaceably submit to the law. These commissioners reached the region of disaffection about the time the convention were to meet at "Parkinson's Ferry," now Williamsport, on the Monongahela.

Among the delegates to the convention were men of distinguished ability, at the head of whom was Albert Gallatin. Although a foreigner, who could with difficulty make himself understood in the English language, yet he presented with great force the folly and danger of past resistance, and the ruinous consequences which must result from a continuance of the insurrectionary movements. He showed that the government was bound to vindicate the laws, and that an overwhelming force would be marched against them unless the offered amnesty was accepted. The insurrection by him was placed in a new light; it was shown to be a matter of much more serious import than had been apprehended. The ardor of the most reckless was abated; the commissioners of the government were admitted to a conference; in an earnest discussion

relative to a submission to the laws, a strong disposition was manifested to accept the proffered amnesty. Some of the leaders of the rebellion already began to tremble for the consequences. The Democratic clubs of Paris did not work so well in the western country; and, for the permanent citizens, mob-law, executed by a set of desperadoes, had proved an indifferent substitute for law regularly administered. ²²²

Many had seen their folly, and would gladly return to their allegiance, but to retrace their steps was no easy matter. The Federal government might grant an amnesty, but they had incurred a fearful state of responsibility to their fellow-citizens and neighbors; violence against individual property and personal rights might meet a fearful retribution in the state courts. A dissolution of the Union had been agitated in the West; many were anxious to throw themselves under the protection of Spain or of France, if she resumed dominion in Louisiana. Spanish emissaries and agents of the Jacobins of France were encouraging disaffection in Kentucky and Tennessee. The British emissaries from Canada had likewise been through the western country, to ascertain the tone of public feeling.

The convention was in favor of submission; but they had not been authorized by their constituents to make any terms with the general government. They declined to act, and referred the question back to the primary town meetings.

Early in September, the country was electrified with the news of General Wayne's victory on the Maumee. The combined army of the hostile horde, and their English and Canadian allies, had been signally defeated in sight of a British fortress. The danger of Indian barbarity was over; the general government had triumphed in the arduous warfare with the indomitable savage tribes; could not this victorious army, released from foreign wars, quell the discontent of a disorganized mob at home? Be this as it may, the general government began to acquire respect and consequence among those who lately had defied its power.

The primary meetings were held near the middle of September. Resistance was no longer advocated, except by a few desperate men. The terms of submission proposed by the commissioners were printed, and distributed widely through the country. They were carried to the primary meetings, and

were signed by hundreds, who gladly accepted the proffered amnesty. The leading insurgents were deserted, discouraged, and powerless; the first of October hailed the restoration of peace and order. ²²³

The disorganized malcontents still were sufficiently numerous to make a show of resistance, and to produce some annoyance to the tranquility of the country. The Federal government had made active preparations to subdue the rebels by force of arms, while overtures of peace were tendered to them. Already a powerful army of fourteen thousand militia, assembled from Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, was on its march to the western counties of Pennsylvania. The army proceeded to Pittsburgh, and there encamped. Not a shadow of resistance was shown, and the last remains of disaffection disappeared. Bradford and a few obnoxious chiefs fled to the Spanish dominions on the Mississippi, and others to the remote settlements of the West.

An inquisitorial court was opened by General Hamilton on the part of the government, and informers flocked in by hundreds, of whom many had suffered severely from the insurgents. At length a catalogue of names was completed and handed over to a captain of dragoons, who found no lack of guides in making his arrests. A few days sufficed to place under military guard about three hundred prisoners for further examination.

The intercession of influential friends procured the discharge of many; but others, less fortunate, were detained in custody and sent to Philadelphia for trial. Some were there detained in prison for several months, and finally discharged. One individual was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for robbing the mail, but was ultimately pardoned. Thus terminated this first resistance to the laws of the country by a regularly organized insurrection. ²²⁴

The main body of the army soon afterward took up the line of march for their homes; some, at their request, were paid off and discharged at Pittsburgh. A few battalions were retained on duty through the winter. To keep down any germs of insurrectionary spirit, the government ordered the enlistment of a regiment of dragoons, to serve six months, and to be composed of such persons as were well disposed to the government.

Portions of this troop were kept in constant motion from point to point, or in attending the excise officers in their visits.

In the mean time, the inhabitants of the western settlements had been gradually and steadily increasing. Pittsburgh had acquired much importance by reason of the arrival and departure of the United States troops and military stores. The population was now one thousand souls, and the Legislature at its last session had incorporated it as a regular borough, by an act approved April 22d, 1794. The same year a settlement at Presque Isle had been abandoned, in order to conciliate the Indians. ²²⁵ It was again settled two years afterward.

[A.D. 1795.] The decisive victory of the Maumee over the combined savages and their English allies had restored the frontiers to quietude and safety. Confidence was renewed, and emigrants again began to press forward; settlements became more dense; trade and manufactures began to flourish, and prosperity smiled upon the country. About the close of this year Pittsburgh presented a population of fourteen hundred souls. ²²⁶

Yet the country northwest of the Alleghany River was still an uninhabited wilderness, and its contiguity to the warlike tribes near the lakes formed but little inducement to immigrants more securely located. To procure the occupancy of this region, the state government deemed it expedient to hold out strong temptations to the poor settler as well as to the rich capitalist. Among the first measures adopted for this purpose was the grant, or the right of entering or locating a large body of lands, designated in the act of the Legislature, to a number of capitalists who had assumed the name of the "Population Company." The principal condition required of this company was, that within a certain time they should place upon every tract of four hundred acres so located at least one able-bodied settler, and cause to be made certain slight preemption improvements.

The company, to induce immigrants to settle their lands, proposed to grant in fee simple to every such settler one hundred and fifty acres of land, provided he should comply with the requisitions imposed on them. Thus the settler would secure for himself one hundred and fifty acres of land, including

his improvement, while the "company," through him, would secure two hundred and fifty acres more.

Soon afterward, the Legislature passed an act giving to the individual settler, for the same improvements, four hundred acres, the same amount previously allowed to the "company." This interfered with the company's plan of aggrandizement, and was deemed by them an infringement of "vested rights." Immigrants, of course, would prefer to receive four hundred acres from the state, rather than one hundred and fifty acres from the company. The company's grants were slowly taken up; each settler made his improvement for himself, and not for the company, and some incautiously made their improvements within the district which had been appropriated exclusively to the "Population Company."

Settlements progressed in this manner for some time, when the agents of the company commenced suits of ejectment against the state settlers who had encroached upon their privilege. At length the latter harassed with suits and the expenses of litigation, and being utterly unable singly to contend with a moneyed company, voluntarily abandoned their habitations and retired westward into the "Connecticut Reserve." Here no lands were given away; but it was sold for a reasonable price, and the title was indisputable to such amounts and tracts as purchasers desired. ²²⁷ This is a specimen of the beauties of companies and vested rights, and their proneness to interfere with the general prosperity.

[A.D. 1796.] In the mean time, manufactures and arts had greatly multiplied since the treaty of Greenville. Trade began to stand upon a firm basis, and capital was freely invested. The first paper-mill west of the mountains was erected this year, within four miles of Brownsville. This was the "Redstone paper-mills," owned by Samuel Jackson and Jonathan Sharpless, two Quaker mechanics from "Gilpin's paper-mills," on Brandywine Creek. ²²⁸

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