During an era of increasing power of the executive branch under John Adams, the federal government placed an assessment on dwelling houses, land and slaves.

The German speaking populations of this area rebelled against the tax.

They would not allow the assessors to enter homes or would harass them on their way to measure dwellings.

Big crowds formed and there were a few scuffles.

While auctioneer John Fries was the leader of the rebellion, many German speaking citizens became involved.

Women in Macungie were said to have told the assessor, “If I were you I should not go on with that business, before I was prepared with an iron cap.”

The women were known to throw items from second story windows at assessors trying to enter, including the contents of their chamber pot and boiling hot water!

Eventually, a group of men were arrested on charges of tax resistance and taken to the prison at the Sun Inn in Bethlehem.

John Fries organized an armed group of men to travel to Bethlehem to release the prisoners.

Although no shots were fired and no one was injured, John Fries and his men forcibly intimidated the federal marshal to release the tax resisters.

John Fries and about 30 other men were eventually arrested and went to trial.

Fries and three others were charged with treason with the Federalists stirring up a frenzy for them to be hanged.

During the first trial of John Fries, which took place in Bethlehem in 1799, the Lynn Township Assessor, John Oswald in a deposition stated that in while doing his work in December of 1798 he was stopped by a group of people who told him there would be a meeting of township citizens to discuss the assessment.

Oswald brought along two Constitutions and the proclamation of General Washington to the Western Insurgents in 1794.

At the meeting he also showed Lynn Township citizens his written orders, as well as the Act of Congress.

The citizens of Lynn Township didn’t buy it.

They told Oswald that Congress did not have the right to tax them.

In the deposition presented in the trail of John Fries, Oswald stated, “They said I should stop till the lower townships began to measure, as Philadelphia and Germantown; so I was forced to stop.”

Later, the government did assess Lynn with the help of Light Cavalry, after which the Liberty Poles were cut down in silent protest.

After the trails, Fries and the two other men charged with treason were convicted and sentenced to be hanged.

Soon after, President John Adams issued a general amnesty for Fries and the others.

He later commented that the rebels were, “obscure, miserable Germans, as ignorant of our language as they were our laws and were being used by ‘great men’ of the opposition party.”

At the time, because of the newly passed “Alien and Sedition Act” many Pennsylvania Dutch were frightened to be arrested because they feared deportation.

The sentiments of the president were widely held by their countryman.