John Neville
Brigadier General, Continental Army

John Neville was born in 1731 in Virginia.

This Virginia native was a career soldier who served with British General Edward Braddock during the French and Indian War and fought in Lord Dunmore's War in 1774.

During the Revolutionary War, he was Colonel of the 4th Virginia Regiment serving at Trenton, Princeton, Germantown and Monmouth. He also served as Commandant at Fort Pitt in Pennsylvania.

After the war, he became an Inspector of Revenue under the excise laws. In 1791, the newly formed U.S. Congress imposed a tax on distilled spirits to help pay for the cost of the Revolutionary War. The small rural whiskey operations located in the western part of the new nation were charged at a higher rate than their larger competitors in the eastern section of the country. This led to an uprising in the western U.S. known as "The Whiskey Rebellion." This controversy climaxed in 1794 when, in western Pennsylvania, shots were fired, according to Alexander Hamilton, at General Neville and a U.S. Marshall he was escorting through the area to summon farmers who had not paid the tax to court.

The tensions escalated on 16 July 1794, when a group of men surrounded the Neville mansion demanding to see the U.S. Marshall. The confrontation led to the shooting of one of the protesters by Neville. This further angered the frontiersmen and the next day over 500 men once again surrounded the home. The end result of this clash was at least one more protester's death and the General's home being burned to the ground. This incident persuaded President George Washington to take the drastic action of leading a militia force of 13,000 men into western Pennsylvania to squelch the uprising. This response marked the first time under the new Constitution that the federal government had used a strong military presence to exert authority over the nation's citizens. In 1802 the tax was repealed.

Death and Burial

John Neville died on 29 July 1803. He is buried at Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh, PA.