THE WHISKEY BUSINESS and INSURRECTION:
Transcribed and Donated by Jo Ann Scott
As this country became settled, the necessity for diversity of employment forced itself upon the inhabitants; and this at a very early day developed a spirit of enterprise in the trading and manufacturing line. Distilling grain into whisky and milling were among the first industries that came into importance in the new country. There was a large demand for the product of the distillery, as well as of the grist mill in the Louisiana country as it was denominated, which it will be borne in mind was settled and well populated by the French and Spanish, long before the white man had even a lodgement on the Upper Ohio. The former could raise sugar and other semi-tropical produce, while the latter could raise corn and wheat; both needed reciprocally the product of the other; the one section supplemented the other. On this most natural basis, trade mutually advantageous, sprung up.
The Upper Ohio abounded in corn and rye and to make this corn and rye at the same time portable and profitable, still-houses, as they were called, sprung up thickly all over the country, until there was hardly a spring but what had its still-house, and hardly a running brook but had several along its banks. Generally, the apparatus was of small capacity, sufficient, for instance, to manufacture into crude liquor or high wines, the produce of the farm it belonged to; but in other cases, they were more elaborate and of capacity to rectify the crude liquor of several others and turn out many barrels of finished liquor per day. Within three miles of Wellsburg at this day, the sites and sometimes the ruins of not less than a dozen such establishments can be pointed out, though they have been disused for many a long day, most of them for over half a century, and their uses and ownership are almost forgotton. On Panther Run, a small stream a mile back from town, in a distance of two miles from its mouth, are the relics of three rather large distilleries, built of stone and yet standing, though of course dismantled long ago, and turned to other uses. The distillery was usually built in connection with grist mills and worked together, at least the class of larger ones, and the mash tub and worm were considered about as essential to business as were the hopper and mill stone. The refuse of the mill was profitably worked up into whisky, and the refuse of distillation again was further economized by being fed to hogs, a large number of which was usually kept and fattened at the larger establishments and turned into an article of indifferent pork. Of late years, an odium attached to the whisky making business; but at the period of which we treat and up to 1825 or 30, it was considered fully as respectable as any other, and the best citizens, in fact all who were able to, engaged in it, without any thought of opprobrium. It was, indeed, deemed both a necessary and legitimate business. There was neither home nor foreign market for rye or corn, both of which were common and sure crops. The grain would not bear packing across the mountains, and in early days there was no other market open for them, except the Southern, and the route to this was long and dangerous and when reached, it was located in a foreign State. There was a necessity for them, that their produce should be put in a concentrated form. A horse, it was stated, could only carry four bushels of corn, but he could carry the product of twenty-four bushels when converted into high wines, which found a market east of the mountains, and could be used in purchase of salt, goods, &c. The settlers calculated largely on the New Orleans market when it should once be finally opened to them, but in the meantime, they had to depend largely on this packing by horseback for getting their commodity into a paying market. When once there, it was always saleable and brought ready cash. Without some such a market, their grain, beyond what they needed for mere subsistence, was next to valueless.
Whisky Insurrection
The cash or barter price for a bushel of wheat was often as low as 12 1/2 cents, and the price of other grains was in like proportion. In the memory of people now living, flour sold at $1.25 to $1.50 a barrel. In this condition of monetary affairs, the manufacture of whisky seemed to be their only chance, and our forefathers are not to be severely judged if they not only engaged largely in it, but even if they had sympathized largely with their Pennsylvania brethren when these latter revolted against the Federal Government for undertaking to impose and collect an excise tax from their favorite staple. They looked upon it as a wanton imposition.
The whisky insurrection which assumed such formidable dimensions about 1796, as to impel President Washington to send an army of 15,000 militia into Western Pennsylvania to suppress it, never took am overt form in Virginia, notwithstanding the fact that the grievances complained of, bore equally hard on one side of the line as on the other.
Causes of Complaint
The main source of complaint was an act of Congress, dated March 3d. 1791. imposing "a tax of from ten to twenty cents upon every gallon of domestic distilled spirits, and in connection therewith a tax upon the stills with which it was manufactured." The people of Western Pennsylvania, and they are not alone in that, were constitutionally averse to direct taxes in any shape, and had frequently so expressed themselves, and when Congress enacted this law taxing the only means they had, in their view, for obtaining more than a bare subsistence from their farms, they rebelled. They regarded the visits of the inspectors to pry into their business, to guage their barrels for them, brand their packages and note it all in his book, as insulting in the highest degree; and when the law imposed the onerous condition "that the tax was to be paid in cash, before the liquor could be removed from the distillery," their indignation boiled over. A writer upon events at that day, says:
"Often the stills were set up in the cellar of the house where the family resided, or in some contiguous out-house, the same spring supplying the milk house and the worm tub; and the kegs and barrels stood away under the porch, in a cave or in the spring house, with the cider and vinegar or cream crocks as convenience demanded. To have a gauger smelling and spiering around among these with his rod and note book, was rather more than a Scotch-Irish woman could stand whether by day or night."
The disaffection in the western counties of Pennsylvania assumed the proportion of a revolt, the officers of the Government were resisted, insulted, maltreated and in more than one instance fire arms were used with fatal effect; the temper of the people was decidedly bad and the trouble was growing into dangerous, wide spread rebellion, when by a timely display of force on the part of the Government, the revolt was abandoned, the insurgents dispersed, and by a happy display of moderation, peace was restored.
About the year 1807, George Fetter, another man of note of that day, came to Wellsburg and engaged largely in general merchandising, distilling and milling. He came from Oldtown, Maryland, and in conjunction with his brother Daniel, put up and operated a store house and a large warehouse, the latter probably the first of its kind in the town. It was located on the river bank immediately opposite the brick mansion which he built, now owned by the heirs of J. A. Pendleton, in the lower end of the town. The brick house in its day. (1814) was a marvel of magnificence. The firm of G. & D. Fetter did an extensive business in these staples, shipping large quantities to the southern market by flat and keel boats and much eastward by wagon. They were reputed wealthy; at least they handled large sums of money. Their first distillery was located at the Narrows just below the creek, and while engaged in business here they became involved in a heavy law suit with the Government regarding the non-payment of tax on whisky.
Mill and Distillery
Subsequently to this, they put up the large stone building still standing at the mouth of Panther's Run as a grist mill and the rather large distillery connected with it and it was run by them and after Mr. Fetter's death by J. J. Jacob, who married Fetter's widow and by one of the sons until about the year 1834 or 5. He also located what is understood to be the last original land claim of value in the county. The tract lay on the hills between Panther and Pierce's Run and was of considerable magnitude, since owned partly or wholly, by the heirs of John Brady. Mr. Fetter died at the age of about 50, at Steubenville, in 1817, of consumption, when on his way home from a trip into Ohio undertaken for his health. He left several sons who after reaching their majority located at Louisville, Ky.
(source: Original data: Jacob, J. G. Brooke County: Being a Record of Prominent Events Occurring in Brooke County, West Virginia from the Settlement of the Country, until January 1, 1882, Wellsburg, WV, USA: Herald Office, 1882)
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