To Alexander Hamilton from Jared Ingersoll, 23 September 1794
From Jared Ingersoll1
Carlisle [Pennsylvania] Sept. 23d 1794
Dear Sir.
I am endeavouring to collect the necessary information, respecting the Irregularities that have taken place in this town,2 in order that I may secure the Offenders before I proceed to the Westward with the Militia.
I find that the military Stores said to have been expected from Col Hodgsdon3 are not arrived, the Jersey & City Militia may probably be here to-morrow—I mean the Cavalry.
Apprehensive that some inconveni⟨ence⟩ might arise from a disappointment in this particular I have taken the liberty to suggest the circumstance that if any difficulty has occurred it may be obviated.
I just now saw a person who left Pittsburgh last Friday he says he saw no appearance of any Militia embodying, & does not think it likely that any opposition by force of Arms is contemplated, he did not however speak positively on this point nor do I know the degree of credit to which he is entitled.
I am With much respect Yr obed servt
Jared Ingersoll
Be so good as to forward the enclosed Letter to Mrs Ingersoll.
Honle A. Hamilton Esqr.
ALS, RG 94, Hodgdon and Pickering Papers, National Archives.
1. Ingersoll was attorney general of Pennsylvania.
2. The “irregularities,” which occurred in Carlisle on September 11, 1794, are described in the following newspaper account: “We are credibly informed, that the spirited exertions of the Chief Justice [Thomas McKean], and Judge [Jasper] Yeates, to suppress the seditious measures which some violent people were fomenting in Cumberland County, gave offence to their partizans, who, determined to be revenged on the Judges.… On the evening of the day that the Judges left Carlisle, about two hundred armed men marched into the borough, and being disappointed in their main object, they erected a LibertyPole near the Court-House, with some seditious inscriptions, and burnt the Chief-Justice in effigy. Another pole was erected near the door of one of the persons arrested, amidst the shouts of the mob, having ‘Liberty and Equality’ inscribed on it. They fired many vollies during the night time, and dispersed about day-light…” (The [Philadelphia] Independent Gazetteer, September 17, 1794). See also “Letter to the Governor on the Feeling at Carlisle,” September 15, 1794, which is printed in , 300–01.
Depositions of several witnesses to the events at Carlisle may be found in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
3. Samuel Hodgdon. See H to Hodgdon, August 25, September 10, 1794.