296 Singing Valleys 



against those who tried to collect the excise, rose. In Virginia 

 and the Carolinas and in Kentucky very little attempt was 

 made to collect the duty. In those states the farmers' whiskey 

 did not offer serious competition to the stock which the mer- 

 chants imported for sale, or the products of the commercial 

 distillers. But in Pennsylvania whiskey-making had assumed 

 the proportions of a major industry. The excisemen reported 

 that the farmers refused to pay the tax. When the exciseman 

 threatened them with the law, they leveled their rifles at him 

 and told him curtly to "get going/' One or two obstinate col- 

 lectors who did not go quickly were tarred and feathered. 



Despite the law, the settlers in the Back Woods went on 

 with their distilling. They even boasted of it when some of 

 them came together at "The Whale and the Monkey" or 

 "The Green Tree" in Pittsburgh. "Black Betty," as they affec- 

 tionately called the whiskey jug which stood on a shelf in 

 every cabin, became the toast of the Back Woods. They made 

 ballads about her, and sang them; as well as ribald ditties 

 about "the gauger" and his dishonorable intentions toward 

 Black Betty. 



Those farmers who paid the tax on their stills became the 

 object of the "Whiskey Boys' " revenge. Bands of them, with 

 blackened faces, rode about the country and destroyed stills 

 on which the tax was paid. One night a company of them 

 marched into Carlisle, and when the citizens retired into their 

 houses and bolted the doors, they set up a tall pole in the 

 square. A board nailed to it proclaimed 



LIBERTY AND NO EXCISE 

 OH, WHISKEY! 



General Neville was called on to enforce law in Pennsyl- 

 vania. When a company of farmers called on him to protest 

 against this intrusion on their rights as citizens, he ordered 

 his soldiers to open fire on the crowd. Five farmers were killed. 

 A few days later, five hundred "Whiskey Boys," many of them 

 armed with the rifles they had carried during the war, and led 



