General John Neville

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For the British actor, see John Neville

Brigadier General John Neville (July 27, 1731 - July 29, 1803) was an American military officer who fought in the American Revolution and the Whiskey Rebellion.

Born in Virginia, he served with British General Edward Braddock during the French and Indian War and fought in 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.

After the war he was an inspector of revenue under the excise laws, which the newly formed US Congress imposed on distilled spirits to help pay for the cost of the Revolutionary War. However, 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 East. This led to an uprising in the western US known as “The Whiskey Rebellion”.

Events climaxed in 1794, according to Alexander Hamilton, when shots were fired at General Neville and a US Marshal he was escorting through the area to summon farmers who had not paid the tax to court. On July 16, 1794 when a group of men surrounded the Neville Mansion demanding to see the US Marshal. The confrontation led to Neville's shooting of one of the protesters. This further angered the people, and the next day over 500 again surrounded the home. At least one more protester died, and the General’s home, "Bower Hill", was 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 In 1802 the tax was repealed.

Neville built two mansion-style homes near Pittsburgh. The first, "Bower Hill", was burned in 1794, and the second, "Woodville", survives today and is owned by the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation and is a National Historic Landmark.

He is buried in Pittsburgh's Allegheny Cemetery.