Whiskey Rebellion Festival
Emily Petsko / O-R Tax collector Archibald Geary Moulin, played by Jason Dille, was drenched in “tar,” which was actually chocolate syrup, and coated in feathers in this file photo from a previous Whiskey Rebellion Festival.
Guests gather at the Whiskey Rebellion Dinner in the George Washington Hotel, Washington. This year’s event will be held at the Hilton Garden Inn Southpointe, at 6 p.m. July 29.
Katie Roupe / O-R Re-enactors set off a cannon during a previous Whiskey Rebellion Festival along South Main Street in Washington.
Blues entertainer Billy Price was a headliner at a previous Whiskey Rebellion Festival.
Blue Eagle Tavern mixes up adult libations and featured whiskey drinks during a previous festival.
Wild Willy Frankfort, scrimshaw artist and master horner, will appear at the festival again this year.
Frederick Booker Noe, the great grandson of Jim Beam, has served as keynote speaker at previous whiskey dinners. The dinners are fundraisers for the David Bradford House.
President Harry S. Truman once declared the Whiskey Rebellion one of the 10 most important events in American history that nobody knows anything about.
The Whiskey Rebellion Festival, which celebrates the 1794 uprising of 400 Western Pennsylvania farmers – many from Washington County – who opposed a federal excise tax on whiskey produced in the United States, aims to change that.
The festival was first held in 2010 as part of the city of Washington’s bicentennial celebration and proved so popular that organizers decided to hold the event annually.
“We have a singularly unique opportunity to present a part of U.S. history that’s truly important but not that many people know much about. It’s an important historical event that happened right here, right on Main Street,” said Tripp Kline, pointing out that the Whiskey Rebellion has earned a mention in the Broadway show “Hamilton,” the musical biography of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, who imposed the whiskey tax.
“We had Alexander Hamilton knocking on David Bradford’s front door,” said Kline.
The festival has grown into a three-day event held on the second weekend in July and is packed with historical re-enactments, children’s activities, frontier arts and crafts, national musical acts, food and beverage vendors, and the 12th annual Classics on Main car show.
Last year, approximately 20,000 visitors from 14 states and five countries, including Australia, attended the festival.
People come for two reasons, said Kline: historical activities and the music.
One of the festival’s biggest draws are the historical re-enactments, including a staging of the tar and feathering of tax collector Robert Johnson, who in 1791 was assaulted by a group of farmers who traded for important resources by bartering whiskey (which made the spirit nearly as important as money). It was the first of several tar and featherings that tax collectors and anyone assisting them endured over the next few years.
Festival organizer Lee Stivers has lined up stellar musical entertainment, which kicks off with performances by the Washington Symphony Orchestra and Washington Festival Chorale on Thursday. On Friday, blues artists Phil Wiggins & the Chesapeake Sheiks, Jimmy Adler and Matt Jordan perform. Saturday’s musical acts include headliners The Travelin’ McCourys, along with The Jakob’s Ferry Stragglers, the Steel City Rovers, Callan, The Early Mays, Adam Sutch, North Allegheny Fiddlers, Tamsula and Withers, Beau Street Players and Stone Cottage.
Stivers said the festival has created a niche by offering Americana music and foregoing mainstream music.
“This is a type of music that people are very passionate about and are willing to travel to see,” said Stivers.
Added Kline, “A lot of the music that was happening in Western Pennsylvania at that time has a reflection in this type of music: the bluegrass, the fiddle music, the string band music. It’s the kind of thing that the farmers of this time period would recognize today, where they wouldn’t recognize pop music.”
Visitors also can check out the Bradford House, the LeMoyne House and the Washington County Courthouse (architectural and legal tours are offered), and for the first time, an architectural walking tour of important buildings in the city, organized by the Washington County History and Landmarks Foundation, will be held. A presidential walking tour, featuring a variety of sites where 15 American presidents have spoken, stayed, or visited when they came to Washington, returns.
The success of the festival has impacted the city of Washington, where two distilleries, Mingo Creek Craft Distillers and Red Pump Distillery, are opening.
In fact, Pennsylvania was a major producer of rye whiskey, and the keystone state once produced more whiskey than Kentucky.
The Whiskey Rebellion was the U.S. government’s first test of authority.
Kline said he believes the Whiskey Rebellion Festival can draw national attention to the historically significant event in Washington County in the same way the Battle of Gettysburg and the Boston Tea Party have put those towns on the map.
The festival is free, except for food and beverages. This year, the Main Street Farmers Market pavilion will provide cover for festival booths and events.
“We keep adding events and activities to make it a full and more well-rounded experience for visitors,” said Kline. “It’s become quite a celebration of the history of this area.”
For a full schedule of events, visit whiskeyrebellionfestival.com/.