A road closed: Rural insurgency in post-independence Pennsylvania

Journal of American History

Volumn 87, Issue 3, 2000, Pages 855-887

  Bouton, Terry ^a  

^a WINTHROP UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 33750647768     PISSN: 00218723     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2675275     Document Type: Article

References (132)

1. This figure was derived from dockets and papers from the county quarter sessions courts for thirteen of the twenty counties beyond Philadelphia: Bedford, Bucks, Berks, Chester, Cumberland, Dauphin, Huntingdon, Lancaster, Mifflin, Northampton, Northumberland, Washington, and York. It does not include the seven counties beyond Philadelphia for which relevant court papers have not survived or are extremely fragmentary: Allegheny, Delaware, Fayette, Franklin, Montgomery, Luzerne, and Westmoreland. Additionally, from 1788 to 1794, the county of Berks recorded nine other episodes of "nuisance" or "misdemeanor" (the crime designations covering road closings) that were not included in this list because the court dockets did not specify what the defendant had done. It is significant to note, however, that nearly all the Berks cases were followed in the dockets by charges against road supervisors for failing to clear the highways.
2. For fences across roads, see July, Aug. 1788, Aug. 1789, Aug. 1792, Lancaster County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers (Historical Society of Lancaster County, Lancaster, Pa.); Aug., Nov. 1788, Sept. 1792, Sept. 1794, Sept. 1795, Dauphin County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers, County Records (Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg); Aug. 1788, April, Aug. 1792, Nov. 1794, Northumberland County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers (Northumberland County Courthouse, Sunbury, Pa.); Dec. 1788, June, Sept., Dec. 1790, April, Sept. 1792, Aug. 1793, Huntingdon County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers (Huntingdon County Courthouse, Huntingdon, Pa.); April, Aug. 1789, Cumberland County Quarter Sessions Papers (Cumberland County Historical Society, Carlisle, Pa.); June, Dec. 1791, Nov. 1795, Northampton County Quarter Sessions Papers (County Archives, Northampton County Courthouse, Easton, Pa.); Nov. 1792, Bedford County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers (Bedford County Courthouse, Bedford, Pa.); May 1793, Nov. 1795, Bucks County Quarter Sessions Papers (Bucks County Historical Society, Doylestown, Pa.); Sept. 1792, Sept. 1793, Washington County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers (Washington County Courthouse, Washington, Pa.); and Nov. 1792, Chester County Quarter Sessions Papers (Government Services Building, West Chester, Pa.). For trees, see Oct. 1787, Bedford County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers; Feb. 1790, Cumberland County Quarter Sessions Papers; Feb. 1790, Dauphin County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers; and March 1791, Sept. 1792, Washington County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers. For flooded roads, see May 1788, Berks County Quarter Sessions Dockets (microfilm) (Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission); and Jan. 1793, Northampton County Quarter Sessions Papers. For ditches, see May 1788, July 1789, Berks County Quarter Sessions Dockets; Feb. 1789, Chester County Quarter Sessions Papers; July 1789, Bedford County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers; Sept., Nov. 1795, Bucks County Quarter Sessions Papers; June 1791, Washington County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers; and Aug. 1792, Northumberland County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers. For avalanches, see Sept. 1792, Washington County Quarter Sessions Papers. For manure, see Aug. 1787, Cumberland County Quarter Sessions Papers. Other listings in court dockets and papers do not mention the specific method and simply charge the defendant with obstructing the road: Jan. 1794, April 1794, Huntingdon County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers; April 1793, April 1794, Mifflin County Quarter Sessions Dockets (Mifflin County Courthouse, Lewistown, Pa.); July, Aug. 1788, Lancaster County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers; Sept., Dec. 1791, Northampton County Quarter Sessions Papers; April 1788, York County Quarter Sessions Dockets (microfilm) (Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission).
3. The existing scholarship on these insurgencies provides fruitful examinations of many local and regional contexts as well as several of the competing ideological strains running through the protests. But this body of work does not adequately consider the context of mass property foreclosure during the postwar decades or the role that state and federal fiscal and monetary policy played in shaping this hardship. Nor do scholars analyze adequately the diverse patterns of rural resistance that preceded those insurgencies or probe the connections between the two "rebellions." Thomas P. Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution (New York, 1986), 4-5, 28-60;
4. Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism (New York, 1993), 451-88, 695-700;
5. Paul Douglas Newman, "Fries's Rebellion and American Political Culture, 1798-1800," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 119 (Jan./April 1995), 37. Dorothy Fennell's pioneering work untangling the complexities of farm resistance within western Pennsylvania serves as an exception.
6. Dorothy Fennell, "From Rebelliousness to Insurrection: A Social History of the Whiskey Rebellion, 1765-1802" (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1981).
7. Robert Galbraith, Pittsburgh, to George Woods, Dec. 4, 1787, in The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, vol. II: Ratification of the Constitution by the States, Pennsylvania, ed. Merrill Jensen et al. (18 vols., Madison, 1976- ), II (microfiche supplement, document 253, frame 1167); John Armstrong, Carlisle, to William Irvine, Aug. 16, 1787, vol. IX, Irvine Family Papers (Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.); Adam Hubley, Lancaster Co., to John Nicholson, March 1784, Letter Book, Records of the Comptroller General (Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission); Stephen Collins, Philadelphia, to Jinks & Forrester, Dec. 11, 1782, vol. LX, Letter Books, Stephen Collins & Sons Papers (Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.); Collins to Knox & Cowen, Jan. 8, 1784, ibid.; Collins to Charles Wright, Sept. 7, 1787, LXII, ibid.
8. Similar fiscal and monetary policies enacted by elites in nearly every state induced a national economic crisis. Louis Maganzin, "Economic Depression in Maryland and Virginia, 1783-1787" (Ph.D. diss., Georgetown University, 1967), 177-202, 265-68;
9. John H. Flannagan Jr., "Trying Times: Economic Depression in New Hampshire, 1781-1789" (Ph.D. diss., Georgetown Universiry, 1972), 76-132;
10. David P. Szatmary, Shays' Rebellion: The Making of an Agrarian Insurrection (Amherst, 1980), 27-31;
11. Jerome J. Nadelhaft, The Disorders of War: The Revolution in South Carolina (Orono, 1981), 155-72;
12. Michael A. Bellesiles, Revolutionary Outlaws: Ethan Allen and the Struggle for Independence on the Early American Frontier (Charlottesville, 1993), 246-48, 278;
13. Jean B. Lee, The Price of Nationhood: The American Revolution in Charles County (New York, 1994), 228-58.
14. Berks County Execution Dockets (Berks County Government Services Building, Reading, Pa.); Lancaster County Execution Dockets, Book 2 (Lancaster County Courthouse, Lancaster, Pa.); Northumberland County Execution Dockets (Northumberland County Courthouse). These figures represent orders processed, not the actual number of people foreclosed. Since the sheriff typically made several visits to the home of a debtor before the legal action was brought to a close, each case typically generated multiple foreclosure orders.
15. Westmoreland County Execution Dockets, 1782-1792 (Westmoreland County Courthouse, Greensburg, Pa.). To determine the number of households foreclosed, I made generous allowances for the creative spelling of eighteenth-century court officials. For example, since court clerks often used the names "Robinson," "Robertson," and "Robeson" interchangeably, I treated "John Robeson," "John Robertson," and "John Robinson" as the same person. Additionally, I did not make allowances, nor could I, for the many different people in Westmoreland County who shared the same name. As county tax rolls indicate, however, three to five adult men in Westmoreland County might share the same common first and last names. For example, while there were five different cases involving "John Hamilton" and three different people named "John Hamilton" on the tax rolls, I considered all these cases to be referring to the same person. Hence, the figure 1,200 represents only the smallest possible number of people whose goods and land were auctioned. The actual number of individuals who faced foreclosure certainly falls well above this figure.
16. Figures compiled from Westmoreland County Execution Dockets. Keeping in mind that court clerks routinely failed to itemize specific goods, the Westmoreland County records indicate that, from 1782 to 1792, the sheriff confiscated or sold, among other things, at least 320 horses, 200 cows, and 70 sheep. The sale price of goods or land was listed in only a fraction of the cases. The sales of goods failed to cover the debt in 61 of the 66 cases that listed the selling price; land sales failed to cover the debt in 114 out of 171 cases. The range of sale prices for auctioned goods varied by place and what was being auctioned. For example, the auctioned land of a delinquent excise collector in Lancaster County sold for one-third of its value and his possessions for one-fifth: Petition of William Hay, Aug. 26, 1785 (microfilm, frame 385, reel 22), Records of Pennsylvania's Revolutionary Government (Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission). The lands and property of collectors in Bedford County would "not sell for one Eight part of their value": James Gilmore, Bedford Co., to John Nicholson, Feb. 16, 1788, file 18, box 5, General Correspondence, Records of the Comptroller General. A year earlier, other property sold for taxes in Bedford County brought only "one-tenth part of the value": Thomas Crossan, county commissioner, to Nicholson, July 27, 1787, file 5, box 5, ibid.
17. While it is nearly impossible to say where all these people went, it is perhaps enough to note that many foreclosure cases ended with a single notation that the debtor had "gone to Kentucky" or "Indian country." Westmoreland County Execution Dockets, 1782-1789.
18. For scholarship noting the great utility of Pennsylvania's system of paper money and land banks, see E. James Ferguson, Power of the Purse: A History of American Public Finance, 1776-1790 (Chapel Hill, 1961), 3-24;
19. Leslie Van Horne Brock, The Currency of the American Colonies, 1700-1764 (New York, 1975);
20. Mary M. Schweitzer, Custom and Contract: Household, Government, and the Economy in Colonial Pennsylvania (New York, 1987), 115-67;
21. John J. McCusker and Russell R. Menard, The Economy of British America, 1607-1789 (Chapel Hill, 1985), 338-39.
22. The certificates in question represented Pennsylvania's portion of the national war debt. While the funding of the debt certificates that Pennsylvania issued during the war became a controversial subject during the early 1790s, the political struggles of the 1780s were generally confined to questions concerning the interest payments on certificates issued by Congress. The best analysis of certificate holding patterns is Ferguson, Power of the Purse, 35-40, 53-55, 59-69, 251-86.
23. For the market value of securities in Pennsylvania, see Independent Gazetteer, Feb. 15, 1783, Feb. 12, 1784, Jan. 8, 1785;
24. Carlisle Gazette, Feb. 22, 1786;
25. Pennsylvania General Assembly, Minutes of the General Assembly, Dec. 4, 1784, March 16, 1785 (Philadelphia, 1785). For individual certificate holdings of the war debt in Pennsylvania, see Certificate Exchange Proposals, 1789-1793, Records of the Comptroller General.
26. "An Act for Furnishing the Quota of this State Towards Paying the Annual Interest of the Debts of the United States and for Finding and Paying the Interest of the Public Debts of the State," March 16, 1785, in The Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania from 1682 to 1801, ed. James T. Mitchell and Henry Flanders (17 vols., Harrisburg, 1896), X, 454-86;
27. "An Act for Erecting and Opening a Loan Office for the Sum of Fifty Thousand Pounds," April 4, 1785, in The Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania from 1682 to 1801, ibid., XI, 560-72;
28. "State of Arrears Due by the Several and Respective Counties, in the Different Kinds of Money According to the Preceding Schedule," in Pennsylvania Archives: Third Series, ed. William Henry Egle (30 vols., Harrisburg, 1894-1899), V, 373.
29. For Morris's comments about the deposits of paper currency in the Bank of North America, see Mathew Carey, ed., Debates and Proceedings of the General Assembly, on the Memorial Praying a Repeal or Suspension of the Law Annulling the Charter of the Bank (Philadelphia, 1786), 119. For the sake of clarity here and elsewhere, I have expressed all monetary values in dollars. I converted values for pounds into dollars using the standard employed by government officials during this period: seven shillings and sixpence equals one dollar.
30. For prewar currency supply, see McCusker and Menard, Economy of British America, 338-39.
31. For 1786 supply, see Pennsylvania Comptroller General, A View of the Debts and Expenses of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the Funds and Revenues of the Same, December 1786 (Philadelphia, 1786).
32. For 1790 supply, see "State of the Finances of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Till October 1st, 1790," Letter Book, Records of the Comptroller General. For taxpayer totals, see Hazard's Register of Pennsylvania, 4 (July 1829), 12-13.
33. For interest rates, see Pennsylvania General Assembly, Minutes of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, Sept. 6, 1785;
34. E. James Ferguson et al., eds., The Papers of Robert Morris (8 vols., Pittsburgh, 1973- ), VI, 79n51.
35. Robert Morris to Thomas Jefferson, June 11, 1781, in Papers of Robert Morris, ed. Ferguson et al., I, 143;
36. Morris to John Jay, July 13, 1781, Papers of Robert Morris, ibid., I, 287;
37. Morris to the President of Congress, July 29, 1782, Papers of Robert Morris, ibid., VI, 63;
38. Robert Morris, "Observations on the Present State of Affairs," Jan. 13, 1783, Papers of Robert Morris, ibid., VI, 306.
39. The most helpful works for understanding Morris's political and economic vision are Ferguson, Power of the Purse;
40. Clarence L. Ver Steeg, Robert Morris: Revolutionary Financier (Philadelphia, 1954).
41. York County Petition, 1784 (microfilm, reel 3), Records of the General Assembly (Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission); Carlisle Gazette, April 2, 1788.
42. For text of petitions against the Bank of North America, see Pennsylvania Evening Herald, Feb. 23, 1785, Feb. 10, 1786.
43. For text of petitions against land speculation, see Carlisle Gazette, Aug. 20, 1794.
44. For a more complete analysis of the democratic vision of Pennsylvania farmers during the revolutionary period, see R. Terry Bouton, "Tying Up the Revolution: Money, Power, and the Regulation in Pennsylvania, 1765-1800" (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1996), 12-48, 172-265, 402-40.
45. Council of Censors, The Constitutions of 1776 and 1790 (Harrisburg, 1825). Although the political faction called the Constitutionalists was responsible for drafting the 1776 constitution, by the end of the war, leadership had passed to a new set of men whose ideas of government were more consistent with those of Robert Morris than they were with those of the drafters of the state charter.
46. For the shirting political tides in revolutionary Pennsylvania, see Robert L. Brunhouse, The Counter-Revolution in Pennsylvania, 1776-1790 (Philadelphia, 1942);
47. Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America (New-York, 1976);
48. Steven Rosswurm, Arms, Country, and Class: The Philadelphia Militia and the "Lower Sort" during the American Revolution, 1775-1783 (New Brunswick, 1987).
49. The most revealing petition campaigns were the ones for a new state loan office in 1784 and 1785, the efforts in 1785 and 1786 to protect paper money and the public loan office from the Bank of North America, and the 1786 and 1787 campaign to reduce the tax burden by allowing farmers to use war debt certificates to pay taxes, mortgages on their lands, and land patent fees. For specific petitions from these years, see Pennsylvania General Assembly, Minutes of the General Assembly; Petition Files, Records of the General Assembly; and Records of Pennsylvania's Revolutionary Government.
50. The plaintiff listings in county execution dockets and papers read as a roster of the prominent people within each county. Those lists also reveal patterns of indebtedness that crossed county lines. For example, execution docket books for Westmorland and Washington counties disclose that many of the same merchants, lawyers, and county officers regularly filed suits in both jurisdictions.
51. Commissioners of Bucks County to John Dickinson, July 31, 1783, in Pennsylvania Archives: First Series, ed. Samuel Hazard (12 vols., Harrisburg, 1852-1856), X, 75; William Henderson, John Craig, and Michael Graham, Chester Co., to His Excellency and the Supreme Executive Council of the State of Pennsylvania, Dec. 18, 1786 (frame 340, reel 22), Records of Pennsylvania's Revolutionary Government; Jacob Rosencrantz, Northampton Co., to John Nicholson, Sept. 1, 1786, file 1, box 4, General Correspondence, Records of the Comptroller General;
52. Commissioner Jacob Smyser, York Co., to John Dickinson, Aug. 5, 1783, quoted in Roger H. Brown, Redeeming the Republic: Federalists, Taxation, and the Origins of the Constitution (Baltimore, 1993), 61 ; John Thome, Dauphin Co., to Nicholson, Sept. 22, 1786 (microfilm, frame 324, reel 19), General Correspondence, Sequestered John Nicholson Papers (Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission); John Agnew, Cumberland Co., to Nicholson, Oct. 2, 1786, file 5, box 4, General Correspondence, Records of the Comptroller General.
53. John Cadwallader, Huntingdon Co., to John Nicholson, May 22, 1788, file 13, box 9, General Correspondence, Records of the Comptroller General; William Moore, Westmoreland Co., to Nicholson, Dec. 1786, file 13, box 4, ibid.; Sept. 1785, Washington County Quarter Sessions Papers; Andrew Swearingen, Washington Co., to Nicholson, Feb. 4, 1787, file 12, box 4, General Correspondence, Records of the Comptroller General.
54. For examples of the reluctance of county officers to put the law into force, see Commissioners of Bucks County to John Dickinson, July 31, 1783, in Pennsylvania Archives: First Series, ed. Hazard, X, 75;
55. Commissioners of Cumberland County to Dickinson, Jan. 11, 1783, Pennsylvania Archives: First Series, ibid., IX, 736; Commissioners of Northumberland County to President of the Supreme Executive Council, Nov. 26, 1785 (frame 621, reel 22), Records of Pennsylvania's Revolutionary Government; Jacob Rosencrantz, Northampton Co., to John Nicholson, Sept. 1, 1786, file 1, box 4, General Correspondence, Records of the Comptroller General; Stephen Duncan to Nicholson, Oct. 3, 1786, file 5, box 4, ibid.;
56. Chester County Commissioners Minute Book, Nov. 1785, quoted in Brown, Redeeming the Republic, 56.
57. "Agreeable to the request of the Honorable the Committee on Ways and Means," Dec. 1786 file 8, box 4, General Correspondence, Records of the Comptroller General. See also Brown, Redeeming the Republic, 64-65.
58. George Clingler, Franklin Co., to John Nicholson, Oct. 2, 1786, file 7, box 4, General Correspondence, Records of the Comptroller General; Richard Parker, Cumberland Co., to Nicholson, Sept. 19, 1787, file 7, box 5, ibid.; Robert Levers, Northampton Co., to Nicholson, June 14, 1787, box 2, file 5, ibid.; Jacob Arndt Jr., Northampton Co., to Nicholson, April 21, 1787, file 17, box 4, ibid.; Christopher Dering, Northampton Co., to Nicholson, Nov. 26, 1787, file 11, box 5, ibid.
59. The incidents were documented in letters from the Bedford County commissioner to the Pennsylvania Comptroller General: Thomas Crossan to Nicholson, Aug. 22, 1787, file 6, box 5, ibid.; Crossan to Nicholson, Sept. 15, 1787, file 10, box 5, ibid.
60. Robert Levers, Northampton Co., to Nicholson, Feb. 15, 1786, file 6, box 3, ibid. Admittedly, the evidence documenting reluctant witnesses and forgiving juries is thin: only the comments of a handful of county officers have survived to chronicle these efforts. Nevertheless, the few existing examples suggest that, in places, the practice may have occurred with some regularity - even in the more commercial eastern counties.
61. Richard McAlister, York Co., to Nicholson, July 31, 1787, file 8, box 5, ibid.
62. Ibid.
63. Ibid.
64. Ibid.
65. Robert Levers, Northampton Co., to Nicholson, Oct. 13, 1786, file 6, box 4, ibid.; Thomas Crossan and David Stewart, Bedford Co., to Nicholson, April 24, 1787, file 17, box 4, ibid.; Jacob Arndt Jr., Northampton Co., to Nicholson, Aug. 25, 1786, file 16, box 3, ibid.; Arndt to Nicholson, April 21, 1787, file 17, box 4, ibid.; Jan. 1786, Washington County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers. Tax rolls in western Pennsylvania confirm that sheriffs were among the wealthiest officers of county government and constables among the poorest: R. Eugene Harper, The Transformation of Western Pennsylvania, 1770-1800 (Pittsburgh, 1992), 168.
66. Richard Parker, Cumberland Co., to John Nicholson, May 13, 1788, file 16, box 6, General Correspondence, Records of the Comptroller General; Alexander McKeehen and George Logue, Cumberland Co., to Nicholson, March 21, 1789, file 13, box 6, ibid.; Commissioners of Bucks County to John Dickinson, July 31, 1783, in Pennsylvania Archives: First Series, ed. Hazard, X, 75;
67. Ephraim Douglass, Fayette Co., to Dickinson, July 11, 1784, Pennsylvania Archives: First Series, ibid., X, 588.
68. See also Commissioners of Cumberland County to Dickinson, Aug. 14, 1783, Pennsylvania Archives: First Series, ibid., X, 79-80;
69. Commissioners of Taxes Northampton County, Aug. 25, 1783, Pennsylvania Archives: First Series, ibid., X, 92;
70. Michael Hahn, York Co., to John Nicholson, Dec. 15, 1786, Pennsylvania Archives: First Series, ibid., XI, 97; John Thome, Dauphin Co., to Nicholson, Dec. 27, 1786 (reel 19, frame 326), General Correspondence, Nicholson Papers; William Perry, Westmoreland Co., to Nicholson, Sept. 21, 1786, file 3, box 4, General Correspondence, Records of the Comptroller General; Alexander Boyd, Chester Co., to Nicholson, Feb. 9, 1786, file 6, box 3, ibid.
71. Compiled from Westmoreland County Execution Dockets, 1783-1786.
72. For the incidents of assaults on county officials, see Jan. 1783, April 1785, Bedford County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers; Feb. 1783, Aug. 1785, Aug. 1787, Chester County Quarter Sessions Papers; July 1781, Oct. 1784, Cumberland County Quarter Sessions Papers; Feb., May, Aug. 1787, Dauphin County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers; March 1781, June 1782, Lancaster County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers; Dec. 1783, Sept., Dec. 1785, Northampton County Quarter Sessions Papers; Nov. 1787, Northumberland County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers; and April 1781, April, July 1782, Jan. 1783, July 1785, York County Quarter Sessions Dockets.
73. Circular, March 30, 1786, Letter Book, Records of the Comptroller General; Dorsey Penticost, Washington Co., to Council, April 16, 1786, in Pennsylvania Archives: First Series, ed. Hazard, X, 757. This kind of opposition continued into February 1787, when the Washington County treasurer reported that tax collectors were still "in danger from the hands of People in disguise, in dark Corners, etc. etc. etc.": Thomas Scott to John Nicholson, Feb. 27, 1787, file 17, box 4, General Correspondence, Records of the Comptroller General. For eighteenth-century forms of "charivari" or "rough music,"
74. see E. P. Thompson, "Patrician Society, Plebian Culture," Journal of Social History, 7 (Summer 1974), 382-405;
75. E. P. Thompson, "Rough Music Reconsidered," Folklore, 103 (no. 1, 1992), 3-26.
76. For examinations of "rough music" in eighteenth-century America, see Alfred F. Young, "English Plebian Culture and Eighteenth-Century Radicalism," in The Origins of Anglo-American Radicalism, ed. Margaret Jacob and James Jacob (London, 1984), 185-212;
77. Fennell, "From Rebelliousness to Insurrection," 4-43, 98-122.
78. Michael Hahn, York Co., to John Nicholson, Dec. 15, 1786, in Pennsylvania Archives: First Series, ed. Hazard, XI, 98;
79. Pennsylvania Mercury, June 8, 1787.
80. Jacob Arndt Jr., Northampton Co., to Nicholson, April 21, 1787, file 17, box 4, General Correspondence, Records of the Comptroller General.
81. John Thome, Dauphin Co., to Nicholson, Dec. 27, 1786, March 24, Octa. 20, 1787 (frames 326, 328, 332, reel 19), Nicholson Papers.
82. For the refusals of Northampton and Bucks County militiamen to march in 1784, see Honorable John Boyd and Lt. Col. John Armstrong to President Dickinson, Aug. 7, 1784 (frame 409, reel 21), Records of Pennsylvania's Revolutionary Government. For petitions of Bucks County militiamen, see "Petition of Sundry Inhabitants of the Township of Lower Milford in the County of Bucks to President of the Supreme Executive Council," April 15, 1785 (frame 39, reel 22), ibid.;
83. "Richmond Township, Bucks County," 1785 (frame 496, reel 22), ibid.
84. David Rittenhouse, state treasurer, to President Dickinson, April 27, 1784, quoted in Brown, Redeeming the Republic, 63.
85. "State of the Accounts of the Treasury . . . from 1782 . . . to 1785," in Pennsylvania Archives: Third Series, ed. Egle, V, 368-73;
86. "Account of Taxes Paid by the Several Counties, from Jan. 1, 1787 to Sept. 6, inclusive," Sept. 20, 1787, in Pennsylvania General Assembly, Minutes of the General Assembly (Philadelphia, 1787);
87. "County Tax Accounts, Balances, Effective Supplies Taxes, 1785-1789," County Tax Accounts, Records of the Comptroller General. The 1787 deficits ran statewide, ranging from 72 percent of taxes unpaid in the eastern counties of Chester and Northampton to 90 percent of taxes unpaid in the central counties of Cumberland and York.
88. James Wilson, Convention Debates, Dec. 4, 1787, in Documentary History of the Ratification, ed. Jensen et al., II, 500.
89. Morris, "Observations on the Present State of Affairs," Jan. 13, 1783.
90. John Nicholson to Thomas Mifflin, Sept. 17, 1788, Letter Book, Records of the Comptroller General; Nicholson to Richard Parker, Cumberland Co., June 19, 1788, ibid.; Nicholson to Commissioners of Cumberland County, March 31, 1789, ibid.; Nicholson to Christopher Devring, Northumberland Co., May 16, 1789, ibid.
91. "A Supplement to the Act Entitled An Act to Enforce the Due Collection and Payment of Taxes Within this Commonwealth,'" Oct. 4, 1788, in Statutes At Large of Pennsylvania, ed. Mitchell and Flanders, XIII, 145-49;
92. "A Supplement to the Act Entitled A Supplement to the Act Entitled An Act to Enforce the Due Collection and Payment of Taxes Within this Commonwealth,'" March 28, 1789, in Statutes At Large of Pennsylvania, ibid., XIII, 292-94;
93. "An Act Relating to the Securities to be Given by Sheriffs and Coroners," March 5, 1790, in Statutes At Large of Pennsylvania, ibid., XIII, 455-57;
94. "An Act to Provide a More Effectual Method of Settling the Public Accounts of the Commissioners and Treasurers of the Respective Counties," March 30, 1791, in Statutes At Large of Pennsylvania, ibid., XIV, 41-46.
95. For judicial resistance, see Samuel Edmiston, Mifflin Co., to John Nicholson, June 9, 1790, file 14, box 7, General Correspondence, Records of the Comptroller General; and Joseph Kerr, Mifflin Co., to Thomas Mifflin, Feb. 26, 1793, file 6, box 10, ibid. For delinquent constables, see report of Christian Ferbiger, State Treasurer, Nov. 22, 1790, file 5, box 1, General Correspondence, Records of the Treasury Department (Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission); David Allen, Cumberland Co., to Nicholson, July 26, 1788, file 6, box 6, General Correspondence, Records of the Comptroller General; Ephraim Douglass, Fayette Co., to Nicholson, May 15, 1788, file 4, box 6, ibid.; Douglass to Nicholson, Jan. 29, 1789, file 11, box 8, ibid.; Nicholson to James Page, Nov. 19, 1787, file 11, box 5, ibid.; Treasurer of Washington County to Nicholson, Feb. 3, 1788, file 17, box 5, ibid.; Samuel Crossan, Bedford Co., to Nicholson, April 26, 1788, file 3, box 6, ibid.; Samuel Davidson, Bedford Co., to Nicholson, Dec. 29, 1789, file 6, box 7, ibid.; and Daniel Levan, Berks Co., to Christian Ferbiger, Feb. 1, 1790, file 1, box 1, General Correspondence, Records of the Treasury Department. For stopped sheriffs' auctions, see Nicholson to Richard Parker, June 19, 1788, Letter Book, Records of the Comptroller General. For sheriffs, see Nicholson to Commissioners of Lancaster County, June 27, 1788, ibid.
96. April, Aug. 1792, Northumberland County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers.
97. Aug., Nov. 1788, Dauphin County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers; Feb. 1789, Chester County Quarter Sessions Papers; Nov. 1793, Huntingdon County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers.
98. Aug. 1792, Lancaster County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers. For other examples of road supervisors failing to clear roads that their neighbors filled with obstructions, see March 1791, Washington County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers; May, Nov. 1788, Berks County Quarter Sessions Dockets; March 1791, Washington County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers; Aug. 1792, Lancaster County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers; July 1789, Bedford County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers; Dec. 1788, Dec. 1790, Aug. 1793, Nov. 1793, Huntingdon County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers; Nov. 1794, Northumberland County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers; Oct. 1787, Cumberland County Quarter Sessions Papers; and April 1788, York County Quarter Sessions Dockets.
99. Carlisle Gazette, April 2, 1788.
100. "Constitution of the Mingo Creek Society," Feb. 28, 1794, in Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Incidents of the Insurrection in the Western Parts of Pennsylvania in the Year 1794 (3 vols, bound in one, Philadelphia, 1795), III, 25, and appendix, 148-49.
101. Washington County Execution Dockets, 1791-1794 (Washington County Courthouse, Washington, Pa.); Brackenridge, Incidents of the Insurrection, III, 25.
102. I compiled these figures from quarter sessions dockets and papers for the following counties: Bedford, Berks, Bucks, Chester, Cumberland, Dauphin, Huntingdon, Lancaster, Mifflin, Northampton, Northumberland, Washington, and York.
103. "Minutes of the Meeting [of western counties delegates] at Pittsburgh, Sept. 7, 1791," in Pennsylvania Archives: Second Series, ed. John B. Linn and William Henry Egle (19 vols., Harrisburg, 1874-1893), IV, 20-21;
104. "Minutes of the Meeting at Pittsburgh, 21, 22 Aug. 1792," Pennsylvania Archives: Second Series, ibid., 30-31.
105. See editorial note in Linn and Egle, eds., Pennsylvania Archives: Second Series, IV, 1-10.
106. See also Slaughter, Whiskey Rebellion, 109-15;
107. Fennell, "From Rebelliousness to Insurrection," 4-43, 98-122.
108. Judge Alexander Addison to Gov. Thomas Mifflin, Nov. 4, 1792, in Pennsylvania Archives: Second Series, ed. Linn and Egle, IV, 36-39.
109. See also James Brison to Mifflin, Nov. 9, 1792, Pennsylvania Archives: Second Series, ibid., 44-45;
110. David Redick to Alexander Dallas, Nov. 14, 1792, Pennsylvania Archives: Second Series, ibid., 46-47;
111. Judge Thomas Smith to Mifflin, Dec. 10, 1792, Pennsylvania Archives: Second Series, ibid., 54-57.
112. Brackenridge, Incidents of the Insurrection, I, 86.
113. March, June 1791, Sept., Nov. 1792, Washington County Quarter Sessions Dockets and Papers.
114. Testimony of Jacob Eyerly in The Two Trials of John Fries on an Indictment for Treason, ed. Thomas Carpenter (Philadelphia, 1800), 222; Deposition of Jacob Snyder, Oct. 7, 1799, Insurrection in Western Pennsylvania, Rawle Family Papers (Historical Society of Pennsylvania).
115. Aurora, Jan. 12, Feb. 4, Feb. 21, Feb. 27, 1799. Emphasis in original.
116. Deposition of Israel Robert, n.d., Insurrection in Western Pennsylvania, Rawle Papers; Fries quoted by Testimony of James Williamson in Two Trials of John Fries, ed. Carpenter, 187. Due to blurred print in the original document, it was unclear whether the word in the Fries quote was "snakes" or "shakers."
117. Brackenridge, Incidents of the Insurrection, appendix VIII, 138, 139; Deposition of Isaac Meason, frame 346, reel 1, M-986, Criminal Case Files of the U.S. Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 1791-1840 (National Archives, College Park, Md.); William Bradford to Secretary of State, Sept. 5, 1794, Pennsylvania Whiskey Rebellion Collection (Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress).
118. Deposition of Adam Hetzel, April 11, 1799, Insurrection in Western Pennsylvania, Rawle Papers; Testimony of Cephas Childs in Two Trials of John Fries, ed. Carpenter, 74;
119. Testimony of Israel Roberts, Two Trials of John Fries, ibid., 114.
120. Although the economy improved in the early nineteenth century and bank paper became more abundant, credit continued to be controlled by a relatively small number of men who lent money to a limited circle of friends and associates, thus denying farmers access to a reliable source of low-cost credit. While many farmers prospered under this system and embraced the values of economic liberalism, most continued to struggle, expressing their discontent in a variety of ways, sometimes resorting to ethnic and racial violence. Farmers would challenge the political and economic dominance of a moneyed elite during the Jacksonian period and again during the Populist movement in the century's closing decades, both times falling short of their objectives. For relevant studies, see, for example, Naomi Lamoreaux, Insider Lending: Banks, Personal Connections, and Economic Development in Industrial New England (New York, 1994);
121. John Mack Faragher, Sugar Creek: Life on the Illinois Prairie (New Haven, 1986);
122. Charles C. Bolton, Poor Whites of the Antebellum South: Tenants and Laborers in Central North Carolina and Northeast Mississippi (Durham, 1994);
123. Lawrence Goodwyn, Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America (New York, 1976).
124. The assumption that ordinary Americans were advocates of economic liberalism underlies much recent scholarship on the Revolution and its aftermath. For relevant examples, see Joyce Appleby, Inheriting the Revolution: The First Generation of Americans (Cambridge, Mass., 2000);
125. Gordon S. Wood, Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York, 1991);
126. Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism.
127. For the way the naming of popular insurgency during the American Revolution has obscured its content and meaning, see Ronald P. Formisano, "Teaching Shays/The Regulation," Uncommon Sense (no. 106, Winter 1998), 24-35.
128. For elite attempts to tame the memory of the Revolution, see Alfred F. Young, The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American Revolution (Boston, 1999).
129. This essay joins a growing body of scholarship seeking to understand how ordinary farmers interpreted the economic provisions of the revolutionary settlement: see, for example, Szatmary, Shays' Rebellion;
130. Alan Taylor, Liberty Men and Great Proprietors: The Revolutionary Settlement on the Maine Frontier, 1760-1820 (Chapel Hill, 1990);
131. Bellesiles, Revolutionary Outlaws;
132. Robert A. Gross, ed., In Debt to Shays: The Bicentennial of an Agrarian Rebellion (Charlottesville, 1993).