Whiskey Rebellion fest features music, history

The Whiskey Rebellion Festival will kick off its four-day celebration Thursday for the eighth year running, but this time with an added twist: Three local bands will beam out rock, roll and soul music in what event co-chair Tripp Kline promises will be a “raucous night.”
The performance, pegged as “The Legends of Washington,” will start at 6 p.m. on the Washington Auto Mall Festival Stage in the Community Pavilion on South Main Street in Washington and will feature The Fugitives, The Jinx Band and The Marks Brothers. The festival itself will begin at 3 p.m. on the same day with free tours of the Bradford House Museum and will conclude with a performance by the Washington Symphony Orchestra on Sunday.
In years past, the symphony headlined the opening night, but the event’s planning committee decided to switch up the music schedule to keep the festival fresh and interesting, said Kline’s co-chair, City of Washington Councilman Joe Manning.
The festival will still include old favorites, like Main Street’s Street Theater, which will stretch from 11:15 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and feature professional actors draped in historical garb, reenacting events that led to the famous 18th-century rebellion. The performance will crescendo with the annual tar and feathering of a whiskey tax collector.
Visitors can further immerse themselves in the history surrounding the small-scale revolution by viewing 18th-century cooking and weapon demonstrations and distilling displays at Schneider’s Fort in Washington Park from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Observer-Reporter
Observer-Reporter
Woodville Plantation re-enactors, from left, Dave Frankowski, Don Ragaller and Rob Windhorst march in the community parade during a previous Whiskey Rebellion Festival in Washington.
Due to popular demand, the festival will revive its reenactment of an 18th century church sermon at 11 a.m. Sunday at the Main Pavilion in Washington Park. The event will also offer free walking and museum tours.
Kline emphasized that the Whiskey Rebellion is a historical event exclusive to Western Pennsylvania.
“In the same sense that no place else but Salem can claim the Witch Trials and no place else but Gettysburg can claim the Battle of Gettysburg, no place else but Washington County can claim the Whiskey Rebellion,” he said.
In July 1794, tensions surrounding an excise tax on whiskey exploded when a force of 400 rebels converged upon the home of a tax inspector south of Pittsburgh. Though Congress had instituted this tax to establish a steady source of revenue for the new country, its burden fell heavily upon poor farmers in Western Pennsylvania, who frequently distilled their grain into liquor to make it easier to ship and preserve.
The rebellion dispersed and most of the rebels fled when President George Washington dispatched 13,000 militia troops to the area.
Since it began as a component of the city’s bicentennial celebration in 2010, Kline said the festival keeps getting bigger and better. Though attendance has hovered between 15,000 and 20,000 in the past, Kline anticipates this number to be even higher this year as the event falls on a holiday weekend.

Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter
Rug hooking, as it was done by early American settlers, is demonstrated by re-enactor Donna Hamilton of Washington during the 2016 Whiskey Rebellion Festival.
He also hopes that the fans of the local bands scheduled to perform on the festival’s opening night will stick around for the entire celebration.
Each year, the event’s featured musical guests draw a crowd. Bands and singers flock to the festival from across the nation and have previously gone on to earn Grammy Awards after performing at the celebration.
“We get them on the upswing,” Kline said.
This year, a band all the way from Austin, Texas, will headline the free concert on Saturday. Wood & Wire blends aspects of Americana, swing and blues to make for a powerful, energetic sound. On Friday, indie blues artist Amanda Fish will headline with her Kansas City soul band.
Read more about the festival and find a schedule of its planned activities and musical guests at whiskeyrebellionfestival.com.