MAYSVILLE, Kentucky — Kentuckians have always had a soft spot for punching back at the powers that be. Some of that spirit came from the Pennsylvanian farmers and distillers who migrated here in 1791 to escape federal excise taxes and government overreach on their whiskey production.
Kentucky was considered the District of Kentucky or part of Virginia until it became the 15th state in the Union on June 1, 1792.
In 1791, Kentucky was attractive to irritated Pennsylvania farmers because they could produce whiskey without government overreach. More often than not, farmers were cash-poor and used their whiskey as currency. But the government required the excise tax to be paid in cash — cash that they did not have.
So a lot of them left. Thomas Jefferson, the governor of Virginia at the time, even made it easier to leave by offering 60 acres of land to any native of Pennsylvania who
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