David Bradford Tried for Treason! A One-Act Play to Benefit Local Charities

Washington, PA. June 12, 2023. Attorney and politician David Bradford fled the country to avoid capture and trial for treason for his role in the Whiskey Rebellion. While two of the 20 other men were tried and convicted, President George Washington later pardoned them and other rebels in 1795. Bradford, however, was tried and indicted in absentia, and wasn’t pardoned until 1799 by President John Adams.

The Trial of David Bradford, a one-act play by award-winning playwright William Cameron, posits a different outcome, one that gets at the heart of the motivations, political climate, and personal histories of participants in the rebellion. The play, imagining a fictional trial in which Bradford faces his accusers, had its first live reading prior to COVID at the George Washington Hotel in conjunction with the local Whiskey Rebellion Festival. Two weeks after this year’s festival, it will be performed in a courtroom at the Washington County Courthouse.

Performances will be held Friday, July 21, at 7 pm and Saturday, July 22, at 2 pm, at the Washington County Courthouse.

• Friday’s will include a reception with whiskey tastings and a meet-and-greet with the cast. For Friday, ticket prices are $100 for jury seating (limited to 12) and $75 for gallery seating (limited to 80).
• Saturday’s will be a public performance with tickets only $10, $50 for jury seating. Net proceeds from the event benefit the Bradford House Historical Association and the Washington County Bar Foundation.
• Tickets are available online through EventBrite.

The Whiskey Rebellion was the first test of our new country’s federal powers.

Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton proposed an excise tax on whiskey production to fund the fledgling government, which was still reeling financially from costs of the Revolutionary War. Farmers in Western Pennsylvania, many of whom distilled whiskey as their main marketable commodity, were hostile to the new tax. In July of 1794, a force of 400 disaffected whiskey rebels, mainly from Washington County, attacked and destroyed the home of a tax inspector just south of Pittsburgh. When negotiators sent by President George Washington proved fruitless, he led a force of 13,000 troops, more than he had commanded during the Revolutionary War, to the area. While remaining in Bedford, Hamilton and Virginia Governor Henry Lee marched to the Monongahela River. By the time the federal force arrived, the rebellion had collapsed and most rebels had fled.

David Bradford was born about 1755 in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and grew up near Charles Town, Cecil County, Maryland. He may have served as an army clerk during the American Revolution. Some evidence suggests he may have read law under Samuel Chase, Associate Supreme Court Justice, of Maryland. Bradford later served as Clerk of Courts in Maryland before moving to Pennsylvania.

Bradford arrived in Washington County in 1781. In 1782, he became a member of the Washington County Bar; he later became a member of the bar in neighboring counties. He was the highest paid attorney in Ohio County, Virginia (now West Virginia), with offices in Wheeling and Bethany. Appointed Deputy Attorney General (District Attorney) of Washington County in 1783, he held the position until he left the area in October 1794. Bradford was also involved in politics. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1785 to 1786 and was elected to the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 1792, serving one term. Bradford was a representative from Washington County to various meetings during the Whiskey Rebellion, including Pittsburgh in 1792 and Whiskey Point in August 1794, ordering the interception of the mail in July 1794. In August of that year at Braddock’s Field, the rebel forces named him their Major-General. As federal troops advanced to Washington County, Bradford fled south to Spanish West Florida (present-day Louisiana), taking up a new life there.