Little Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion

Washington, Pennsylvania, known locally as Little Washington to distinguish it from the capital, holds a quiet constitutional distinction: in March seventeen eighty-one, Pennsylvania carved Washington County from Westmoreland County and named it for General George Washington, making it one of the earliest counties named for him, after Maryland's Washington County of seventeen seventy-six. The town became its seat. A decade later, western Pennsylvania farmers exploded in the Whiskey Rebellion against Alexander Hamilton's federal excise tax, and Washington was its radical center.

Attorney David Bradford led the organizing here, and a federal militia of nearly thirteen thousand men had to march west in seventeen ninety-four to end it. A stone house at forty-nine East Maiden Street quietly outlasted the rebellion: the LeMoyne House, built in eighteen twelve, became one of the most active Underground Railroad stations west of the Allegheny Mountains, sheltering freedom seekers for decades.