Biography
Frederick Heaney (also spelled Heany or Hainly) was a Pennsylvania German tailor from Milford Township, Bucks County, and — next to John Fries himself — one of the two most active leaders of Fries’s Rebellion, the 1798–1800 uprising of eastern-Pennsylvania farmers against the federal direct ("house") tax. Tried for treason in the U.S. Circuit Court at Philadelphia in 1800 before Justice Samuel Chase, he was convicted of levying war against the United States and, with Fries and John Getman, sentenced to be hanged. President John Adams pardoned all three on May 21, 1800, two days before the scheduled execution. Heaney returned home, later serving as a justice of the peace and captain of a volunteer militia company, and died at an advanced age in Plainfield, Northampton County.