Neville, John

NEVILLE, JOHN. (1731–1803). Continental officer. Virginia. Born in Prince William County, Virginia, in 1731, Neville took part in Braddock's expedition to capture Fort Duquesne in 1755, during the French and Indian Wars (1689–1763). He then settled near Winchester, where he became sheriff. He later bought large tracts of land near Pittsburgh and became joint holder of an additional 1,000 acres as a reward for his military service. In August 1775 the Virginia Committee of Safety ordered him to occupy Fort Pitt, and he was commandant of that frontier post for the next year. Commissioned as a lieutenant colonel of the Twelfth Virginians on 12 November 1776, Neville fought with General George Washington's army at Trenton, Princeton, and Germantown. On 11 December 1777 he became a colonel of the Eighth Virginians and led them in the Monmouth campaign. Transferred to the Fourth Virginians on 14 September 1778, he was brevetted as a brigadier general on 30 September 1783.

Neville's land became part of Pennsylvania after the war. He was appointed to the position of U.S. Inspector of Excise (in addition to the other offices he held), and became the primary target of the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794. Crowd actions halted his tax collecting, burned his house, and drove him into temporary exile, but he returned with the federal force that put down the rebellion. He died at his estate on Montour's Island, near Pittsburgh, on 29 July, 1803.

SEE ALSO Monmouth, New Jersey.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Slaughter, Thomas P. The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.

                             revised by Michael Bellesiles