Colonel Edward Cook and the Whiskey Rebellion

In the seventeen nineties, western Pennsylvania became the stage for the new American republic's first major domestic crisis. When the federal government imposed an excise tax on whiskey in seventeen ninety-one, farmers in this region erupted in fury. For frontier settlers, whiskey was not a luxury. It was currency, medicine, and the most efficient way to get surplus grain to market over the mountains. The tax became law in March of seventeen ninety-one, and the crisis peaked in July of seventeen ninety-four, when a gunfight at the fortified home of tax inspector John Neville, called Bower Hill, left rebels dead. On the first of August about seven thousand people gathered at Braddock's Field.

Colonel Edward Cook was a prominent landowner, judge, and politician in this region during the Revolutionary era. When the Whiskey Rebellion broke out, Cook occupied a complicated middle position. He initially urged moderation. But he ultimately sided with the protesters, joining the protest movement and taking part in its meetings. President Washington sent thirteen thousand troops to suppress the uprising. Washington himself led the army west, but it met no resistance, and about one hundred fifty people were arrested. Only two men were convicted of treason, and Washington pardoned both. Cook's story captures the genuine tension felt by men who had built a republic but now felt squeezed by the very government they had helped create.