Tag: Boston Tea Party

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The Winter of 1774–1775 in Boston

On June 1, 1774, in response to the Boston Tea Party, the newly appointed governor, Lt.-Gen. Thomas Gage, shut down the towns’ harbor. All shipping and commerce came to standstill.  Ships-of-war appeared in the harbor, army regiments arrived from England and only food was allowed to enter the town (by way of the town of […]

by Bob Ruppert
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Summer of ’74 in Boston

Parliament responded to the Boston Tea Party by imposing on the colony of Massachusetts a series of Acts, collectively called the Coercive Acts. The four Acts were the Boston Port Bill, the Quartering Act, the Impartial Administration Act and the Massachusetts Government Act. The first one, the Boston Port Bill, received King George III’s royal […]

by Bob Ruppert
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The Secrets of Samuel Dyer

As recounted in a previous article, in October 1774 a sailor named Samuel Dyer returned to Boston, accusing high officers of the British army of holding him captive, interrogating him about the Boston Tea Party, and shipping him off to London in irons. Unable to file a lawsuit for damages, Dyer attacked two army officers […]

by J. L. Bell
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A Painter Abroad: John Singleton Copley Writes to His Wife

It may have been Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s patriotic paean that belatedly canonized a heroic horseman as a key figure of the American Revolution, but it was John Singleton Copley who provided posterity with the definitive visual representation of the famous midnight rider. Seven years before Paul Revere spread the alarm through every Middlesex village and farm—and […]

by Justin Ross Muchnick
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Tea in 18th Century America

Tea in 18th Century America by Kimberly K. Walters. (K. Walters at the Sign of the Gray Horse, 2019) Best-selling author Lucinda Brant offers enthusiastic praise in her Foreword for Kimberly K. Walters’s Tea in 18th Century America, citing their shared interest in “all things 18th century.” Brant briefly describes the contents of the book and […]

by Timothy Symington
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The Tea that Survived the Boston Tea Party

The Boston Tea Party famously saw the destruction of the almost 300 chests worth of tea, tossed into the harbor by “Indians” on December 16, 1773. Initial reports described “the total destruction of the Teas aboard the Ships Dartmouth, William, & Eleanor and the Beaver”—the four ships bringing the East India Company’s tea to Boston in […]

by James R. Fichter
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Paul Revere’s Other Rides

Myth: “The fate of a nation was riding that night,” ­Longfellow wrote. Fortunately, a heroic rider from Boston woke up the sleepy-eyed farmers just in time. Thanks to Revere, the farmers grabbed their muskets and the American Revolution was underway: “And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight, / Kindled the land […]

by Ray Raphael
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The Signal of Sam Adams

Myth: Toward evening on December 16, 1773, Francis Rotch, beleaguered owner of one of the tea-laden ships in the Boston Harbor, announced to thousands of people assembled at Old South Meeting House that Governor Hutchinson remained firm and would not allow his vessel to return to Britain with its cargo still on board. At that […]

by Ray Raphael
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They Destroy’d the Tea!

On 6 December 1773, Lt. Col. Alexander Leslie of the 64th Regiment of Foot wrote a letter to the highest ranking official in the British army, Lord Viscount Barrington, the Secretary at War. It may seem unusual for an officer of Leslie’s rank to write directly to an officer subordinate only to the King, but […]

by Don N. Hagist