OP WASHINGTON COUNTY, MARYLAND.
 

Ill
 

CHAPTER VIII
 

' OR A century after the first settlement of
the Valley of the Antietam and the
Cono'cocheague, one event followed anoth¬
er to keep alive the military spirit of
the people. For more than a generation there
was a constant struggle for existence—a war
against the Indians and the privations and
hardships of a frontier life. Then came the
great struggle with the Mother Country. After
that the new member of the sisterhood of nations
had to remain always upon the defensive and al¬
ways ready to resent the insults which were show¬
ered upon her, and it was only by the skin of the
teeth that a war with France was escaped. The
people of the county had just been called upon to
surrender their arms to the State when another
occasion arose for their use and they were again
distributed. The great question which ^faced the
early Congresses was how the revenues of the Gov¬
ernment should be raised. In solving this ques¬
tion serious iijternal complications and disturb¬
ances arose, and the new County of Washington
was a portion of the theatre in which these dis¬
turbances took place and our own people took a
prominent part not only in the disturbances them¬
selves, but in suppressing them. In 1791 the
second Congress passed what is known as the "Ex¬
cise law," the very name by which it was called
being hateful to a large portion of the American
people. Whiskey was one of the staple produc¬
tions of Washington County and of all that coun¬
try near this latitude west of the Blue Ridge Moun¬
tains which had no facilities for the transportation
of their grain to market. Wheat was ground into
flour and carried in covered wagons to the seaport
 

towns at a heavy expense, but corn and rye, which
were largely produced, were not of a sufficient
value to justify this expensive method of trans¬
portation. They were therefore converted into
whiskey and shipments of these crops yvere made
in this less bulky form. And in those days of
great scarcity of coins or currency of any kind,
whiskey was largely used as a measure of value
and an article of barter. A gallon of rye whiskey
at the stores of the county and in Western Penn¬
sylvania was equivalent to a shilling. When there¬
fore Congress put a tax of from seven to eighteen
cents a gallon on whiskey according to its strength
or proof, or an alternative tax upon the still, it
was regarded as an oppressive and tyrannical meas¬
ure. Western Pennsylvania was instantly in a
ferment. The revenue collectors who came among
them received the same treatment and even yvorse
than had been visited upon the sellers of stamps
twenty years before. Those who gave a collector
shelter or countenance were tarred and "feathered
and left bound to trees; those who gave information
against the illicit distillers or moonshiners receiv¬
ed even worse treatment. Their property was de¬
stroyed by the torch and they might esteem them¬
selves fortunate if they escaped with their lives.
Conventions of the "Whiskey Boys" were held and
they had friends in Congress and in the Legisla¬
ture of every State. Governor Mifflin of Pennsyl¬
vania, appointed commissioners to treat with them
and whilst he and his commissioners were 'treating,'
the President of the United States issued his proc¬
lamation warning the insurgents to disperse and
submit to the law and called for twelve thousand
volunteers.    The   Whiskey   Boys   had   sent   their