Pennsylvania auctioneer John Fries organized meetings, starting in February 1799, to discuss a collective response to the tax. As an itinerant auctioneer, Fries was well acquainted with the German-Americans' issues in the southeastern part of Pennsylvania. This was important because the three counties in which the opposition was centered (Bucks, Northampton, and Montgomery) were heavily populated by German immigrants who, as Chernow notes, were "generally uneducated and easily misled by rumors, such as the notion that President Adams planned a wedding between one of his sons and a daughter of George III." Many advocated resistance in response to the tax. In Milford township, particularly, assessors were unsuccessful in completing their tax assessments due to intimidation. At a meeting called by government representatives in an attempt to explain the tax in a way as to defuse tensions, protesters waving liberty flags, some armed and in Continental Army uniforms, shouted them down and turned the meeting into a protest rally.
