The Fries Rebellion of 1799, Quakertown, Bucks County

During our visit to the Sun Inn two weeks ago, I talked briefly about the Fries Rebellion and how the inn served as a holding place for some of the arrested rebels until they were liberated. I also said that the incident has its own marker and I'd be covering it in a future blog post. Over this past weekend, my husband and I were in Philadelphia for his birthday, and on our way home we stopped in Quakertown to get the details.

All I knew, going in, was what I told you in the previous post about the Fries Rebellion and the fact that the sign was at the Historic Red Lion Inn on Main Street in Quakertown. I've driven through Quakertown a fair few times, usually on my way to its farmer's market. (The market has a pretty decent used video game store.) I knew the sign was at the inn, but I was puzzled because I'd never seen it - as it turns out, the inn is on Main Street, but the marker is around the corner, at the side of the building.

Edited 3/5/2024: This blog post is now available as a podcast episode! Learn even more facts about the Fries Rebellion by listening to or downloading the episode today at Audio.com, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.

The marker is on the property
of the Historic Red Lion Inn
at 4 South Main Street, Quakertown

So the Historic Red Lion Inn, as it's colloquially known, was established in 1748 as McCoole's Tavern; Walter McCoole was either the first or the second owner, and was the man responsible for bringing alcohol to the establishment - not a popular move in a heavily Quaker community, but it seems to have worked out. It's been in continual operation, under various names, for almost three hundred years. Today it operates as a restaurant, McCoole's at the Red Lion Inn, which features an adjacent building for arts-related events. After getting my photos (and probably making the outdoor patrons wonder about the odd tourist), Kevin and I went inside to have dinner and maybe learn some more about the place.

The Red Lion Inn has some curious features to its history. I'll get to the rebellion in a minute, but our server Eileen helpfully provided us with some additional information about other things that have happened there in the past. Remember the old television series Lassie? Well, it was based on a 1940s novel, Lassie Come Home, by Eric Knight. He used to come to the inn for lunch and bring his dog, the original Lassie, who would be served steak right on the floor. Eventually the spot where the steak was placed for the collie became irreversibly stained; you can still see it by the fireplace in the rear dining room.

The building is also said to be haunted - employees and customers alike have reported sightings of orbs and even of ghostly figures over the years. There's one particular ghost, a Victorian woman, who appears only in the ladies' bathroom. The inn was even connected to the Underground Railroad, and an old tunnel can be accessed from the basement. (Special thanks to the social media representative of the Historic Red Lion Inn for bringing these facts to my attention on Facebook!)

The inn also has a claim to fame as the possible birthplace of birch beer. For the five or so of my readers who aren't from around here, birch beer is - today - a non-alcoholic beverage similar to root beer, but specifically made with birch sap. Originally it actually was a beer, and what is believed to have been the forerunner of the modern recipe was served at the Red Lion Inn. According to what Eileen showed me, the recipe was carefully guarded for many years, but eventually became popular knowledge and was served in taverns and inns all over Pennsylvania.

All of this is fascinating, of course, but we're here to talk about rebels.

Fries's Rebellion has several different names; you might know it as the House Tax Rebellion, or if you speak Pennsylvania Dutch you may have heard of the Heesses-Wasser Uffschtand. In the 18th century, there were three tax-related rebellions in the United States, and this was the third one. It's a special part of the local history, because it had a lot of impact on the Pennsylvania Dutch farmers and, well, you can only find those in Pennsylvania Dutch country, which includes Bucks County.

As the 19th century approached, the United States got into what is known today as the Quasi-War with France. It wasn't really a war, since neither side ever actually declared war on the other, but it was two years of hostilities, almost all at sea. Basically, the French Revolution chopped off Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI's heads, and the United States decided that this meant that we didn't have to repay France all the money they had loaned us during our Revolution. We had borrowed it from the monarchs, after all, and they were no longer in charge (or alive) and so they couldn't very well expect to be repaid. The French, for some strange reason, didn't appreciate this attitude, and so they started attacking American shipping vessels and the Americans retaliated and it was messy.

War, even undeclared war, is expensive. Congress needed a big army and a bigger navy, but - try not to be too shocked here - Congress didn't really have the means to pay for it. So in July of 1798, they decided that increasing taxes was the perfect solution (*gasp*), and they imposed $2 million in new taxes on real estate and slaves. To put that in perspective, that was $2 million in 1798, which is the equivalent of more than $40 million in today's money. It was the first, and last, tax of its kind. Incidentally, not too long before they came up with all these ingenious new taxes, they also passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which - among other things - made it a criminal act to criticize the government. This is relevant.

Pennsylvania being what it was, the residents didn't have too many slaves. So most of the tax money being squeezed out of Pennsylvanians had to come from assessments on their land and homes, and specifically, houses were taxed based on the size and number of windows they had. However, this was not supposed to be the case - the window count was never supposed to be part of the direct tax. It seems like this was just an effort to make sure that Pennsylvania paid its appointed portion of the tax revenue. Government officials rode around on horses to visit houses and count their windows. People generally considered this to be incredibly unfair, especially since they still had fresh memories of previous heavy taxes levied against farmers and also of efforts to prosecute farmers who weren't able to keep up with those taxes. Many of these farmers called themselves Kirchenleute (literally, "church people"), which they felt separated their identity as German Lutheran and German Reformed people; this was in contrast to the English-speaking Quakers and also the sectarian groups such as Moravians, Mennonites, and Anabaptists. Perhaps not coincidentally, many of the assessors who came to count the Kirchenleute's windows were Moravians and Quakers.

This is where John Fries comes into the story. Fifty years old and a resident of Trumbauersville in Lower Milford Township, he was an auctioneer who traveled around running auctions. As such, he was well acquainted with many people in the area, and he agreed with their feelings that the taxes were wrong and that rebellion was needed. (Notably, Fries was not one of the Pennsylvania Dutch - he was actually of Welsh descent.) In 1799, he began meeting with several others in the Historic Red Lion Inn, then called Enoch's Tavern, to organize their rebellion. It began with steadily increasing aggression toward the assessors - first harassing them, then driving them off by dumping boiling water on them, then actually capturing several of them in Quakertown and placing them under brief arrest at Enoch's Tavern. The assessors were released and told to go away, never come back, and be sure to tell the government what had happened to them. Many of the assessors resigned, feeling threatened. Others wanted to resign but weren't allowed because nobody was willing to take their place. 

Interior of the Historic Red Lion Inn; care has been taken
to preserve as much of the original woodwork as possible,
giving visitors a feel for how it may have looked when Fries
was organizing his rebellion here

Federal arrest warrants were issued for the rebels. One arrest in Macungie (then called Millerstown) was prevented by a protective mob, but several others were performed and the U.S. Marshal took his prisoners to Bethlehem, where they were held - as I told you - at the Sun Inn. In response to this, Fries and several other rebels marched to Bethlehem in order to free their fellows; this was done without any violence, and the imprisoned tax resisters were peacefully released. President John Adams finally got involved, sending federal troops and some local militia to arrest the insurgents, including John Fries. (The President then went home to Massachusetts and let everybody else deal with the mess.)

Fries and the others who were arrested were taken to Philadelphia for trial; a few of them died in prison. Alexander Hamilton, who was running the treasury, ordered the insurgents to be tried for treason, and he wanted them tried in Philadelphia rather than a local court because the locals would certainly have found them innocent. It took two trials, but Fries and two of the others were found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged. Much to Hamilton's annoyance, President Adams pardoned them; in spring of 1800, having finally smoothed over most of the mess with France, he issued general amnesty for the rebels as well as specific pardons for the three convicted ringleaders. Peace with France was confirmed in September.

What happened after his rebellion? Well, Fries went home to his wife Margaret and their ten children. He resumed his career as an auctioneer, and died in 1818; he still has several descendants in the area. In addition to the historical marker at the Historic Red Lion Inn, Fries is memorialized through a section of PA Route 663, which passes near his home in Trumbauersville and is called John Fries Highway; if you travel on the northeast extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, you can see the sign identifying the overpass near the Quakertown exit. His home is also still standing, and has a sign identifying it as the John Fries Home.

John Adams, on the other hand, lost his bid for re-election as President, and the rebellion is probably one of the reasons why. The Federalist party turned against him for pardoning the convicted ringleaders; meanwhile, the rebels remembered him not as the one who pardoned their ringleaders, but as the one who signed off on the tax that led them to rebel in the first place, and their votes reflected this. Colonial historians generally believe that Adams would have most likely won another term if he'd been able to take Pennsylvania in the election. Instead, out went Adams and in came Jefferson, in part thanks to some rebellious farmers in Pennsylvania Dutch country.

It really does come down to the details, and sometimes, those details include the number of windows on your house. 

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Sources and Further Reading:

Official website of McCoole's at the Historic Red Lion Inn

Newman, Paul Douglas. Fries's Rebellion: The Enduring Struggle for the American Revolution. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.

Hendrickson, Robert A. The Rise and Fall of Alexander Hamilton. Dodd, Mead, & Company, 1985.

John Fries in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica

American Military History Podcast on Fries's Rebellion

The Fries Rebellion at Explore PA History.com; includes an artist's depiction of the capture of three assessors at Enoch's Tavern

The Fries Rebellion of 1799 by the Macungie Historical Society

Haunted History: McCoole's at the Red Lion Inn in Quakertown by WFMZ 69 News

The Fries Rebellion of 1799 at the Historical Marker Database

If you've enjoyed this, please leave a comment!

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Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.