Career
As a local militia officer, he joined forces led by General Edward Braddock and Virginia colonal George Washington in the French and Indian War.
When the war ended, the British treaty restricted settlement west of the Appalachian Maountains, so Neville settled in Frederick County, Virginia, made his home near Winchester (the county seat) and was elected sheriff.
When native American raids west of the Appalachian Mountains led to Lord Dunmore's War in 1774, Neville led the local militia. By the end of that war, he had settled in what became Pittsburgh and commanded Fort Pitt.
Both Virginia and Pennsylvania claimed land west of the Appalachian Mountains. Virginia called its claims West Augusta County, and when Governor Dunmore dissolved the House of Burgesses, voters in West Augusta County elected John Neville (and nonresident John Harvie) as their representatives in the Virginia Revolutionary Convention of 1775. However, failed to appear at the week-long session in Richmond due to illness.
In 1776, local residents offered Neville a commission as a Yohogania County justice, but he declined and continued his work as officer in charge of Fort Pitt.
When the Revolutionary War began, Neville served in several regiments of the Virginia Line, still with the rank of colonel and seeing action at Trenton, Princeton, Germantown, and Monmouth. At the end of the Revolutionary War he was awarded a brevet promotion to brigadier general.
In 1783, Neville was elected to the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania from Washington County.[3] By 1787, both Virginia and Pennsylvania had ceded most of their claims to the trans-Appalachian region, which became the Northwest Territory. Surveyors Mason and Dixon established the Mason-Dixon line dividing Maryland (whose charter nominally ended at the Appalachians), and Pennsylvania. Subsequent surveys and negotiations placed Pittsburgh and what Virginia called Yohogania County in Pennsylvania, but the other two West Augusta Counties (Ohio County and Monongalia County in Virginia.
As a result of his family connections over the course of his life, Neville was "as close to being an aristocrat as republican America west of the Alleghenies would allow."[5]
After the war, Neville accepted a job as an inspector of revenue under the excise laws, so he was ineligible to hold office in Virginia. The newly formed United States Congress taxed distilled spirits to help pay for the cost of the Revolutionary War. There were two methods of paying the whiskey excise: paying a flat charge or paying by the gallon. The tax effectively favored large distillers, most of whom were based in the east, who produced whiskey in volume and could afford the flat fee. Western farmers who owned small stills did not usually operate them at full capacity, so they ended up paying a higher tax per gallon. Thus, large producers ended up paying a tax of about 6 cents per gallon, while small producers were taxed at about 9 cents per gallon.[6]
Events climaxed in 1794, according to Alexander Hamilton, when shots were fired at Neville and a U.S. Marshal he was escorting through the area to summon to court farmers who had not paid the tax. On July 16, 1794, a group of around fifty men surrounded the Neville mansion, demanding to see the US Marshal. The confrontation led to Neville's shooting of one of the protesters. Neville and his slaves were not injured during the fight. This further angered the people, and the next day, over 500 again surrounded the home. At least one more protester died, and Neville's home, Bower Hill, was burned to the ground, including the slave quarters.[7]
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.
