Whiskey Rebellion Festival receives $40K marketing grant
President Harry S. Truman once remarked the Whiskey Rebellion was one of the most important episodes in U.S. history that no one knows anything about.
“We’re trying to change that,” said Tripp Kline, co-chairman of the annual Whiskey Rebellion Festival in Washington.
Kline recalled the story about Truman Wednesday when Washington County announced the festival will receive a $40,000 marketing grant from the county Tourism Promotion Agency.
Truman felt the rebellion was important because it was the first major challenge to the young country in 1791, one that would prove to citizens the federal government had the right to enact taxes and enforce their collection, Kline said.
President George Washington sent federal troops into the region to suppress the resistance to a tax on locally produced whiskey before the rebellion collapsed in Monongahela in 1794.
The festival is entering its fifth year at a time when organizers are hoping to draw larger crowds to its events from July 9 to July 12. It opens from 3 to 10 p.m. July 9 alongside the Main Street Farmers Market and with a performance by Washington Symphony Orchestra. A week after the festival, organizers will hold the annual Whiskey Rebellion Dinner at Hilton Garden Inn in Southpointe with Bill Samuels Jr. of Maker’s Mark to raise money for the historic Bradford House in Washington, where Wednesday’s grant presentation took place.
The Bradford House, built in 1788 in the 100 block of South Main Street, was the home of David Bradford, an attorney and rebellion leader, who eluded capture by the federal troops by apparently leaping from a rear window at his home and fleeing on the Ohio River.
“We’re probably the only county in America to celebrate someone escaping for treason,” Washington County Commissioner Larry Maggi said, adding Bradford was eventually pardoned for his role in the rebellion.
The reception there Wednesday kicked off the celebration of the 50th year of the house’s use as a museum, Kline said.
“Fifty years ago, this house was nearly in ruins,” Kline said.
He said a number of people rallied then to save the two-story stone structure.
“It was a part of history that was too valuable to lose,” Kline said.
The $40,000 grant expressed a long-term commitment to the festival, said Mark Alterici, Charleroi mayor and chairman of the Tourism Promotion Agency.