This rebellious Upper Bucks auctioneer nearly lost his life for not paying his taxes

Treason to me is committing some dastardly crime like disclosing military secrets to foreign enemies or trying to overthrow of the government. Treason is codified as “sedition” and “seditious conspiracy”. Oath Keepers involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection recently stood trial on those charges in Washington and were convicted.

Such prosecutions are rooted to what happened in Upper Bucks County 245 years ago in the nation’s first tax rebellion. It resulted in the death penalty for John Fries and others for sedition. Treason.

Fries, born in Hatfield, was a resident of Traumbauersville, a tiny hamlet four miles from Quakertown. The year was 1798, a mere 22 years after George Washington made his famous crossing of the Delaware from Bucks County in the American Revolution. Of course, George won and became the new nation’s first president. John Adams succeeded him.

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France became miffed at both presidents for resuming trade with England just when the French were at war with the Brits. “Hey, guys,” said the French. “We helped you beat up the British to give you freedom and now you’re making trade deals with them? Cut us a break! Knock if off!”

When they refused, France began seizing American ships. Adams prepared for war. He rushed a request to Congress for $2 million (about $38 million today) to build a Navy with big guns. To pay for them, Congress passed the nation’s first property tax on buildings and slaves. The lawmakers coupled it with the Alien and Sedition Act making it treason to oppose the tax.

Farmers in Upper Bucks took umbrage for being targeted as aliens. Many were German immigrants who settled the Unami Creek watershed in Milford four miles west of Quakertown. The Pennsylvania “Dutch” as they were known had no slaves. So they were taxed by the number of windows in their homes.

Say what?

The farmers seethed. They left Germany because of its hated “Hearth Tax” and now the same was about to be visited upon them in Pennsylvania for, of all things, an undeclared war.

Sympathizers joined the cause in Northampton, Berks and Montgomery counties. Housewives from second-floor windows poured boiling water on window-counting tax assessors. Freedom poles – symbols of anti-British protest during the Revolution – went up denouncing the tax. John Fries tapped into the fury by organizing armed resistance in February 1799. The roving auctioneer, 49, spoke fluent German and English. He rallied support to force assessors out of Milford. When state officials convened a public forum to calm things, Fries and his men, dressed in Continental Army uniforms, showed up waving liberty flags and carrying weapons. (Sound familiar?) They shouted down officials. It was hopeless.

When the state later ordered assessors to resume work in Milford, Fries engaged them with a mob led by fife and drum. Partisans chased the agents four miles east into Quakertown where they captured them outside the Red Lion Inn. On releasing them, Fries threatened to shoot any who returned to Milford.

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Meanwhile, marshals in Berks County arrested 23 dissidents held for trial in Bethlehem. In retaliation, Fries led 400 armed insurgents into the city to free the prisoners. Fearing bloodshed and outnumbered, the jailer released them.

President Adams was furious. He ordered the state militia to arrest Fries. Hiding in a Milford swamp, he was betrayed by his dog and captured. After an initial mistrial, a Philadelphia jury on May 21 convicted him and two others. Sentenced to hang outside the Red Lion Inn, Fries appealed to Adams for mercy. The president concluded tax resistance didn’t rise to the level of treason. So he pardoned the men. The president also issued a general amnesty to German farmers because they were “as ignorant of our language as they were of our laws.” In the end, Fries paid his tax for a war that never was. Which proves Ben Franklin’s old adage: “In this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.”

Today, the John Fries’ Rebellion is memorialized by a roadside marker beside the former Red Lion Inn (now McCoole’s) in Quakertown.

Sources include “Fries Rebellion” by Patrick Grubbs published in 2015 in the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia.

Carl LaVO can be reached at carllavo0@gmail.com

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Not paying taxes nearly ended in death for Bucks County revolutionary