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Conceived in Liberty Companion · Volume IV, chapter 68 · 4 October 1779

Barricaded on Walnut Street

A crowd of militiamen with muskets and bayonets stands in a street looking up at a three-storey brick house, where two men at upper windows hold guns beside gun barrels thrust out over the street.
Philadelphia, October 1779. A militia mob that has seized Tories halts below James Wilson’s brick house. Wilson, General Mifflin and their friends have barred the doors and thrust muskets and pistols out the windows. Rothbard calls the Battle of Fort Wilson the high-water mark of radical power in Pennsylvania. Chapter 68 of Conceived in Liberty.

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Adapted from Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Mises Institute, 2011), CC BY 3.0.

The story, from several sources

This account blends Rothbard’s chapter with the other sources listed below and has not yet been separated into Rothbard’s own account and the fuller story. Read Rothbard’s chapter 68 for his account.

In 1779 Pennsylvania was run by radicals under its new democratic constitution, and the country was drowning in paper money and price controls. James Wilson, a Scots-born lawyer, had defended Tories from seizure and exile and had denounced price controls in Congress, so the radicals hated him and his friend Robert Morris. On October 4 militiamen gathered at a tavern on Tenth Street, seized merchants they called profiteers and marched them through the streets, then turned toward Wilson’s house at Third and Walnut. Wilson and about thirty-five friends, General Thomas Mifflin among them, had barred the doors and manned the windows. Shots were exchanged, the militia set fire to the first floor, and Captain Campbell was killed at a window. Joseph Reed, the president of Pennsylvania, rode up with the City Troop of light horse and broke the crowd with the flats of their sabres. Six died and seventeen to nineteen were wounded, and Reed pardoned the rioters. Rothbard calls the riot the high-water mark of radical power. A year later Philadelphia voted the radicals out by three to one.

Where the record differs from Rothbard

Errata notes. Rothbard’s text and his account above are left as he wrote them. Every erratum.

Conceived in Liberty, p. 1501
Rothbard says The Fort Wilson mob ‘seized three Tories’; ‘several persons were killed’.
The evidence The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia says four merchants were seized and paraded (John Drinker first, at the Quaker meeting house); six died and 17 to 19 were wounded (Wikipedia, ‘Fort Wilson Riot’). Read through fetch summaries.
Source the sources named in the evidence column

Sources

  1. Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2011 single-volume ed.), vol. IV, ch. 68, ‘Conservative Counter-Revolution: Massachusetts and Pennsylvania in 1780’, pp. 1498-1501, esp. p. 1501. CC BY 3.0. Rothbard
  2. ‘Fort Wilson Riot’, Wikipedia (accessed 2026-10-02, through a fetch summary): Wilson’s home at Third and Walnut; Wilson and 35 colleagues barricaded; six died and 17 to 19 wounded; the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry and Baylor’s 3rd Continental Light Dragoons intervened; the rioters pardoned by Reed. Secondary source
  3. ‘The Fort Wilson Riot and Pennsylvania’s Republican Formation’, Journal of the American Revolution, 4 February 2019 (accessed 2026-10-02, through a fetch summary): the militia at Burn’s Tavern, John Drinker seized about noon, the advance on Wilson’s house by about 3 p.m., doors barred and windows manned, Mifflin arriving to take command, Campbell killed at a window. Secondary source
  4. ‘Fort Wilson’, Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia (accessed 2026-10-02, through a fetch summary): Burns Tavern on Tenth Street, Captain Ephraim Faulkner, four merchants seized and paraded, Wilson’s house ‘constructed primarily of brick’ at the southwest corner of Third and Walnut Streets, a three-story dwelling with additions, Captain Campbell’s shot, fire set on the first floor, six dead (four militiamen, a free Black youth and Campbell), 17 wounded, the Executive Council’s pardon. Secondary source
  5. ‘James Wilson (Founding Father)’, Wikipedia, and sketches in search results (accessed 2026-10-02): somewhat plump and florid, a white wig, small round metal-rimmed spectacles, at least six feet tall, blue eyes. Secondary source
  6. ‘Thomas Mifflin’, Maryland Center for History and Culture (accessed 2026-10-02, through search results): remarkably handsome, not above five feet eight, an athletic frame. Secondary source
  7. ‘Reporting for Duty: First Troop Celebrates 246 Years of Civic Service’, Hidden City Philadelphia (accessed 2026-10-02, through search results): the troop’s original brown, buff and gold dress. The light horse is not shown in this picture; the entry supports the era’s forbid list. Secondary source
  8. Era registry entry states-at-war-1779-1783 and place entry wilson-house-philadelphia-1779 (data/cil/registry/), dress, arms and the house; their own sources are listed in their notes. Secondary source