in any disguise), who had been prepared for the event, went
by the Meeting House giving a shout. It was echoed by some
within; others exclaimed, 'the Mohawks are come!;' the
assembly broke up and a part of it followed this body of
young men to Griffin's wharf. Three different parties,
composed of trust-worthy persons, many of whom were in after
life among the most respectable citizens of the town, had
been prepared, in conformity to the secret resolves of the
political leaders, to act as circumstances should require.
They were seventy or eighty in all, and when every attempt
to have the tea returned had failed, it was immediately made
known to them, and they proceeded at once to throw the
obnoxious merchandise into the water. One, if not two of
these parties, wore a kind of Indian disguise. Two of these
persons, in passing over Fort Hill to the scene of
operations, met a British officer who, on observing them,
naturally enough drew his sword. As they approached, one of
the Indians drew a pistol, and said to the officer, 'The
path is wide enough for us all; we have nothing to do with
you, and intend you no harm; if you keep your own way
peaceably, we shall keep ours."
Henry Purkitt, Samuel Sprague and John Hooten, (all living in 1835,)
were apprentices of about the same age. Purkitt and Dolbear were
apprentices with Peck, the cooper, in Essex Street. While at their work
they heard a loud whistle, which startled them, and which they followed
till it brought them to the wharf. Their part of the play was on the
flats, by the side of one of the vessels,--for it was nearly low
tide,--and with other boys, by direction of the commander, to break up
more thoroughly the fragments of chests and masses of tea thrown over in
too great haste. They found their return upon deck much facilitated by
the immense pile which had accumulated beneath and around them. The
commander acted as an interpreter for those persons,--apparently five or
six aboard each vessel,--who especially assumed the Indian guise. These
were no doubt among the principal directors of the whole affair. They
affected to issue their orders from time to time in an Indian jargon,
the interpreter communicating what the chiefs said; attended to the
procuring of keys and lights, the raising of the derricks, trampling the
tea into the mud, sweeping the decks at the close of the scene, calling
up the mate to report whether everything (except, of course, the tea)
was left as they found it, etc.
Purkitt and Dolbear went home early. Peck, who was believed to be one of
the chiefs, came in rather softly, at one o'clock in the morning. The
boys noticed some indications of red paint behind his ears, next day.
The only tools they used were staves, which they made before starting.
* * * * *
David Kinnison, the last survivor of the tea party, died at Chicago in
1852, at the great age of one hundred and fifteen. He was one of
seventeen inhabitants of Lebanon, Maine, who had associated themselves
together as a political club, and, who had determined, at all hazards,
to destroy the tea, whether assisted or not. Some of them repairing to
Boston, joined the party, and twenty-four, disguised as Indians,
hastened on board the ships, twelve armed with muskets and bayonets, the
rest with tomahawks and clubs. They expected to have a fight, not
doubting that an effort would be made for their arrest, and agreed at
the outset to stand by each other to the last. They also pledged
themselves not to reveal the names of the party. Owing to the great age
of Kinnison, when this relation was made to Mr. Lossing, it is possibly
in some particulars erroneous, and is given only as a piece of original
evidence, and simply for what it is worth.
With a British squadron and British troops so near at hand, it seems
strange that the party was not interrupted. The probable reason is, that
something far more serious was expected on any attempt to land the tea,
and that the authorities, the owners of the ships, the consignees of the
tea, and all others concerned, were glad to be thus extricated from a
serious dilemma. They, however, could not be called upon to interfere,
except by the civil authorities, in case of a riot.
Governor Hutchinson says "the tea could have been secured in the town in
no other way than by landing marines from the men-of-war, or bringing to
town the regiment which was at the castle, to remove the guards from the
ships and to take their places." This would have brought on a greater
convulsion than there was any danger of in 1770, and it would not have
been possible, when two regiments were forced out of the town, for so
small a body of troops to have kept possession of the place. He did not
suppose such a measure would be approved of in England, nor was he sure
of support from any one person in authority. There was not a justice of
peace, sheriff, constable or peace officer in the province who would
venture to take cognizance of any breach of law against the general
bent of the people. So many of the actors were universally known that a
proclamation, with a reward for discovery, would have been ridiculed.
Hutchinson submitted the consideration of the affair to the council, and
that body promised to give it attention, but nothing came of it. "Of the
thousands concerned in the transaction," wrote General Gage to the
historian Chalmers, "or who were spectators of it, only one witness
could be procured to give testimony against them, and that one
conditionally that the delinquents should be tried in England." So far
as is known, only a single person was arrested,--a Mr. Eckley, and he
was never brought to trial.
A fourth tea-ship, destined for Boston, was wrecked on Cape Cod. The few
chests of tea saved from her cargo were, by the governor's order, placed
in the castle. Twenty-eight chests, brought a little later by another
vessel from London, on the joint account of Boston merchants, were
destroyed by a disguised party, on March 7, 1774. The people of
Charlestown destroyed, in the market place, all the tea they could find
in the town, paying the owners its value. Other towns did the same.
An account of the transaction, drawn up by the Boston committee, was
carried by Paul Revere, to New York and Philadelphia. When the news
reached New York, vast numbers of the people collected. They were in
high spirits, one and all declaring that the ships with tea on board,
designed for that port, should on arrival be sent back, or the tea
destroyed. They highly extolled the Bostonians for what the people had
done, and immediately forwarded the news to Philadelphia. When Revere,
on his return, brought word that Governor Tryon had engaged to send the
New York tea-ships back, all the bells in Boston were rung next morning.
Extract from a letter to the Sons of Liberty, in New York, dated Boston,
December 17, 1773:
"The bearer is chosen by the committee from a number of
gentlemen, who volunteered to carry you this intelligence.
We are in a perfect jubilee. Not a Tory in the whole
community can find the least fault with our proceedings....
The spirit of the people throughout the country is to be
described by no terms in my power. Their conduct last night
surprised the admiral and English gentlemen, who observed
that these were not a mob of disorderly rabble, (as they
have been reported,) but men of sense, coolness and
intrepidity."
The tea shipped to South Carolina (two hundred and fifty-seven chests)
arrived on the second of December. So strenuous was the opposition to
its being landed, that the consignees were persuaded to resign. Though
the collector, after the twentieth day, seized the dutiable article, as
no one would sell it or pay the duty, it perished in the damp cellars
where it was stored.
On December 25, news reached Philadelphia that its tea-ship was at
Chester. The Delaware pilots had been warned, by printed handbills, not
to conduct any tea-ships into the harbor, as they were only sent for the
purpose of enslaving and poisoning the Americans. Four miles below the
town it came to anchor. On the 27th, news of what had occurred in Boston
having arrived, five thousand men collected in town meeting at an hour's
notice. At their suggestion, the consignee, who came as passenger,
resigned, and the captain agreed to take his ship and cargo back to
London the very next day.
The ship "Nancy," Captain Lockyer, destined for New York, having been
blown off the coast, refitted at Antigua, and proceeding thence to New
York, arrived there April 18, 1774. Some of the committee went on board
and prevented her coming up to the city, but the captain was allowed to
procure some necessary stores, and then, by the advice of the
consignees, returned to London without breaking bulk. A quantity of
tea--private property--was imported from London, and an application from
the consignee to have it returned to England was refused by the
custom-house officers. A number of "Mohawks" then took charge of the
business, and emptied the whole of it into the sea.
A few days later, Captain Chambers, master of the ship "London," trading
to New York, who had on a former occasion received the thanks of her
citizens for refusing to bring the East India Company's tea, was
detected in introducing eighteen boxes of fine tea, curiously concealed
between blankets, etc., which he intended to smuggle, but the people
having discovered it, immediately threw it into the sea, and the
captain, to escape the wrath of the people, took refuge in Captain
Lockyer's vessel, and sailed for England.
Opposition to the obnoxious tea duty had by no means subsided, when, in
October, 1774, the brigantine "Peggy Stewart" approached Annapolis,
Maryland, with a cargo of tea on board. At once there was a great
commotion. Terror seized the owners. They applied to Charles Carroll for
advice. He told them there was but one way to save their persons and
property from swift destruction, and that was to burn their vessel and
cargo instantly, and in sight of the people. It was done, and the flames
did for Annapolis what the "Mohawks" had done for Boston.
* * * * *
"This," said Hutchinson, referring to the action of Boston, "was the
boldest stroke that had been struck in America." Writing to Sir Francis
Bernard, he spoke of it as "an unfortunate event, and what every body
supposed impossible after so many men of property had made part of the
meetings, and were in danger of being liable for the value of it. It
would have given me a much more painful reflection," he continued, "if I
had saved it by any concession to a lawless and highly criminal assembly
of men, to whose proceedings the loss must be consequently attributed,
and the probability is that it was a part of their plan from the
beginning."
"We do console ourselves," wrote John Scollay, chairman of the Selectmen
of Boston, and prominent in the affair, "that we have acted
constitutionally."
"The most magnificent movement of all," wrote John Adams in his diary.
"There is a dignity, a majesty, a solemnity in this last effort of the
patriots that I greatly admire. This destruction of the tea is so bold,
so daring, so firm, so intrepid and inflexible, and it must have so
important consequences, and so lasting, that I cannot but consider it as
an epoch in history. The question is whether the destruction of the tea
was necessary? I apprehend it was absolutely and indispensably so.... To
let it be landed would be giving up the principle of taxation by
Parliamentary authority, against which the continent has struggled for
ten years.... But, it will be said, it might have been left in the care
of a committee of the town, or in Castle William. To this many
objections may be urged."
The historian Ramsay says: "If the American position was right in
relation to taxation, the destruction of the tea was warranted by the
great law of self-preservation. For it was not possible for them by any
other means within the compass of probability to discharge the duty
they owed to their country."
"I cannot but express my admiration of the conduct of this people,"
writes an 'Impartial Observer' in the "Boston Evening Post" of December
20, 1773.... "I shall return home doubly fortified in my resolution to
prevent that deprecated calamity, the landing the tea in Rhode Island,
and console myself with the happier assurance that my brethren have not
less resolution than their neighbors."
"It became," says Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, "a simple question, which
should go under, British tea or American liberty? That volunteer band of
Liberty Boys performed their work 'better than they knew,' averting
contingencies which must have caused immediate bloodshed, and
accomplishing results of the greatest importance to the American cause."
Wm. C. Rives, in his Life of James Madison, says: "This memorable
occurrence was undoubtedly, in the immediate sequence of the events
which it produced, the proximate cause of the American Revolution."
A Tory pamphleteer of the time gives us the Loyalist view of the affair.
He says: "Now the crime of the Bostonians was a compound of the grossest
injury and insult. It was an act of the highest insolence towards
government, such as mildness itself cannot overlook or forgive. The
injustice of the deed was also most atrocious, as it was the destruction
of property to a vast amount, when it was known that the nation was
obliged in honor to protect it."
We subjoin some of the comments of candid British writers respecting the
affair. Mr. Massey says: "The question of taxation was virtually settled
by this signal failure to enforce the law, or rather by the absence of
any attempt to protect the property of merchants who had made their
ventures by the express authority, if not at the instance of the British
government."
While speaking of the destruction of the tea as the "crowning outrage,"
Lecky says, "It will probably strike the reader that every argument
which shewed that the tea duty was not a grievance, was equally powerful
to show that it was perfectly useless as a means of obtaining a revenue.
It would be difficult indeed to find a more curious instance of
legislative incapacity than the whole transaction displayed."
Hear Carlyle:
"Thursday, December 16, 1773. What a contention is going on
far over seas at Boston, New England. The case is well known
and still memorable to mankind. British parliament, after
nine years of the saddest haggling, and baffling to and fro
under constitutional stress of weather, and such east winds
and west winds of parliamentary eloquence as seldom were,
has made up its mind that America shall pay duty on their
teas before infusing them, and America, Boston more
especially, is tacitly determined that it will not, and that
to avoid mistakes the teas shall never be landed at all....
"Rotch's report done, the chairman (an Adams 'American
Cato,' subsequently so called,) dissolves the sorrowful
seven thousand, with these words, 'The meeting declares it
can do nothing more to save the country," we'll naturally go
home then and weep. Hark however! almost on the instant, in
front of the Old South Meeting House, a terrific war-whoop,
and about fifty Mohawk Indians, with whom Adams seems to be
acquainted, and speaks without interpreter: Aha!
"And sure enough, before the stroke of seven these fifty
painted Mohawks are forward without noise to Griffin's
wharf, have put sentries all round them, and in a great
silence of the neighborhood, are busy in three gangs upon
the dormant tea ships, opening their chests and punctually
shaking them out into the sea. Listening from the distance
you could hear distinctly the ripping open of the chests and
no other sound. About ten P.M. all was finished, ... the
Mohawks gone like a dream, and Boston sleeping more silently
even than usual."
In England, the news of the destruction of the tea at Boston was
received with astonishment, not unmixed with anger. Men of all parties
were swept into the hostile current. Coercive measures were at once
brought forward in parliament. In the debates that ensued, a member
said, "The town of Boston ought to be knocked about their ears and
destroyed." Moderate and judicious men made a gallant stand against the
bill shutting up the port of Boston, but the current was irresistible,
and the measure, with others of like character, passed by overwhelming
votes. Burke, on the question of the repeal of the tea tax, made one of
his noblest efforts. Colonel Barré told the House that if they would
keep their hands out of the pockets of the Americans they would be
obedient subjects. Johnstone, formerly governor of Florida, who had
before predicted to the East India Company, that exporting tea on their
own account was absurd and would end in loss, now predicted that the
Port Bill would, if passed, be productive of a general confederacy to
resist the power of Britain, and end in a general revolt. His utterances
were prophetic indeed. These measures did unite the colonies, and
produced a general revolt ending in American independence.
Accounts vary greatly as to the number and appearance of the tea party.
The original body which arrived so opportunely at the door of the "Old
South," and which may have included Molineux, Revere, and the more
prominent leaders, was probably not numerous. They, however, had passed
the word, and trusty coadjutors were not long in following them. Colonel
Tudor and Colonel Stevens say they were not disguised, but all other
accounts state that they were in the Indian dress, or something
resembling it.
The historian, Gordon, places their number at seventeen, "though judged
to be many more as they ran across Fort Hill." "Our number was between
twenty-eight and thirty," says Wyeth, one of the party. Hutchinson says
about fifty, and many have since adopted his statement. Tudor, in his
"Life of Otis," says seventy or eighty. Colonel Ebenezer Stevens agrees
with him. "None put the number lower than sixty, nor higher than
eighty," is the recollection of "a Bostonian," fifty years after the
event. John Andrews was told that they mustered on Fort Hill to the
number of about two hundred. "From one hundred to one hundred and fifty
being more or less actively engaged" thought Hewes, one of the actors.
"Two or three hundred dressed like Indians," wrote Dr. Cooper to Dr.
Franklin.
These varying estimates may be accounted for in this way. Those who
report the smaller number either repeated what they were told, or saw
only one of the parties on its way to the ships, while the others speak
of the entire body after its separate parts had united at the wharf.
Some may mean only such of the party as were in Indian dress. If we
place the number on board the ships at fifty or sixty, and estimate
those at work by the sides of the vessels at sixty or seventy, we shall
probably not be far out of the way, the whole number then aggregating
from one hundred and ten to one hundred and thirty. The names of more
than one hundred of these have been preserved.
Who were these men? "Depend upon it," said John Adams to Hezekiah Niles
in 1819, "These were no ordinary Mohawks. The profound secrecy in which
they have held their names, and the total abstinence of plunder, are
proofs of the character of the men." But two of the recognized leaders
of the people were there,--Dr. Young and Thomas Molineux. Most of them
were mechanics and apprentices, but they were mechanics of the stamp of
Revere, Howard, Wheeler, Crane and Peck, men who could restrain and keep
in due subordination the more fiery and dangerous element, always
present in popular demonstrations. That element was not wholly absent on
this occasion, for Mackintosh, the leader in the Stamp Act riots, was
present with "his chickens," as he called them, and active in destroying
the tea. There were also professional men, like Dr. Young and Dr. Story,
and merchants, such as Molineux, Proctor, Melvill, Palmer, May, Pitts
and Davis, men of high character and standing, so that all classes were
fairly represented. As might be expected, those appointed for the work,
and who were in Indian dress, were largely men of family and position in
Boston.
A writer in the American Magazine of History attempts to discredit the
statement that the party were in Indian dress, intimating that it was an
afterthought, intended to deceive the authorities, and lead them to the
belief that the disguise was too complete to allow of identification for
arrest or punishment. Cavils like this are superfluous in view of the
abundant testimony to the contrary. The sworn protest of Captain Bruce,
of the "Eleanor," one of the tea-ships, given on a subsequent page in
this volume, is of itself sufficient evidence upon this point. The
number of those who, prepared as they were, on the spur of the moment,
really bore any very great resemblance to Indians, was no doubt small. A
large number of the actors hastily assumed such disguises as were
nearest at hand.
No doubt the principals in this transaction pledged one another to keep
their connection with it a profound secret, and they did so, but the
young apprentices and volunteers, who, without premeditation, joined the
party on its way to the wharf, were under no such restraint, and we can
only wonder that they made no revelation concerning an event of such
importance. It was not until a very late period of their lives that any
of them opened their lips publicly about it, and when more than half a
century had elapsed since it occurred.
The names of fifty-eight of these men, given below, are taken from
Thatcher's "Traits of the Tea Party," published in 1835, while nine or
ten of them were yet living, the source whence all later lists have been
derived. Possibly this list is identical with that mentioned as having
once been in the possession of Peter, the son of Benjamin Edes, the
printer. Of this list it is safe to say that, while far from being
complete, it is correct as far as it goes. The names that follow the
list of 1835, have been gleaned from a great variety of sources,
principally family tradition.
"List of the tea party, furnished in 1835, by an aged Bostonian, well
acquainted with the subject, of the persons generally supposed, within
his knowledge, to have been more or less actively engaged." Those
starred were then living:
*George R.T. Hewes.
Joseph Shed.
John Crane.
Josiah Wheeler.
Thomas Urann.
Adam Collson.
S. Coolidge.
Joseph Payson.
James Brewer.
Thomas Bolter.
Edward Proctor.
Samuel Sloper.
Thomas Gerrish.
Nathaniel Green.
*Benj. Simpson.
Joseph Eayres.
Joseph Lee.
William Molineux.
Paul Revere.
John Spurr.
Thomas Moore.
Samuel Howard.
Matthew Loring.
Thomas Spear.
Daniel Ingoldson.
Richard Hunnewell.
John Hooton.
*Jonathan Hunnewell.
Thomas Chase.
Thomas Melvill.
*Henry Purkitt.
Edward C. Howe.
Ebenezer Stevens.
Nicholas Campbell.
John Russell.
Thomas Porter.
William Hendley.
Benjamin Rice.
Samuel Gore.
Nathaniel Frothingham.
Moses Grant.
*Peter Slater.
James Starr.
Abraham Tower.
*William Pierce.
William Russell.
T. Gammell.
---- McIntosh.
Dr. Thomas Young.
Joshua Wyeth.
Edward Dolbear.
---- Martin.
Samuel Peck.
Lendall Pitts.
*Samuel Sprague.
Benjamin Clarke.
Richard Hunnewell, Jr.
*John Prince.
Additional names of the tea party, derived principally from family
tradition:
Nathaniel Barber.
Samuel Barnard.
Henry Bass.
Edward Bates.
Nathaniel Bradlee.
David Bradlee.
Josiah Bradlee.
Thomas Bradlee.
Seth Ingersoll Brown.
Stephen Bruce.
Benjamin Burton.
George Carleton.
Gilbert Colesworthy.
John Cochran.
Gershom Collier.
James Foster Condy.
Samuel Cooper.
Thomas Dana, Jr.
Robert Davis.
Joseph Eaton.
---- Eckley.
William Etheridge.
Samuel Fenno.
Samuel Foster.
John Fulton.
Samuel Hammond.
John Hicks.
Samuel Hobbs.
Thomas Hunstable.
Abraham Hunt.
David Kinnison.
Amos Lincoln.
Thomas Machin.
Archibald Macneil.
John May.
---- Mead.
Anthony Morse.
Eliphalet Newell.
Joseph Pearse Palmer.
Jonathan Parker.
John Peters.
Samuel Pitts.
Henry Prentiss.
John Randall.
Joseph Roby.
Phineas Stearns.
Robert Sessions.
Elisha Story.
James Swan.
John Truman.
Isaac Williams.
David Williams.
Jeremiah Williams.
Thomas Williams.
Nathaniel Willis.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES
OF THE
Boston Tea Party.
MAJOR NATHANIEL BARBER,