Why did the Boston Tea
Party meetings take place at the Old South Meeting House?
Where did the Boston Tea
Party take place?
Why did the Boston Tea
Party participants dress as Indians?
What kind of tea was
destroyed at the Boston Tea Party?
How much tea was
destroyed and what would it be worth today?
Who participated in the
Boston Tea Party?
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Why did the Boston Tea
Party meetings take place at the Old South Meeting House?
The Old South Meeting House was built as a Puritan meeting house,
or church, but it was also the largest building in all of colonial
Boston. It was used for many large public meetings that were too big
for Faneuil Hall, the official town meeting place for Boston. On
December 16, 1773, a crowd of over 5, 000 met at Old South to
protest the Tea Act and decide what should be done about three
shiploads of East India Company tea sitting at Griffin’s Wharf.
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Where did the Boston Tea
Party take place?
The three tea ships Beaver, Dartmouth and Eleanor were docked at
what was known as Griffin’s Wharf in 1773, just a few blocks away
from the Old South Meeting House.
 Griffin’s
Wharf no longer exists today due to massive landfill projects in the
19th century that dramatically changed Boston’s wharves and
shoreline. The site is no longer underwater, but a historical marker
on the corner of Congress and Purchase streets shows where Griffin’s
Wharf once stood.
-
Why did the Boston Tea
Party participants dress as Indians?
Although many 19th century images of the Boston Tea Party portray
the participants decked out in full feather headdresses and leather
hides, this is not at all accurate when compared with the few
reminiscences from eyewitness accounts. The Massachusetts Gazette
reported in its December 23, 1773 issue that “a number of brave and
resolute men, dressed in the Indian manner, approached near the door
of the [Old South Meeting House], and gave a war-whoop, which rang
through the house, and was answered by some in the galleries.”
According to eyewitnesses and participants, “Indian dress”
constituted being clothed in blankets or ragged clothing and
smearing their faces with grease and lampblack or soot. Many of the
men carried hatchets in order to be able to break open the chests of
tea. The men were attempting to disguise their identities more than
resemble Mohawk Indians.
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What kind of tea was
destroyed at the Boston Tea Party?
342 chests of Bohea tea were destroyed at the Boston Tea Party.
Bohea was a term used for black tea in the 18th century tea trade.
Bohea tea came from the Wuyi Mountains in Fujian Province, China.
Despite the fact that the importer of the tea was the East India Tea
Company, the tea that was cast overboard in the Boston Tea Party was
not from India, as many have mistakenly assumed.
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How much tea was
destroyed and what would it be worth today?
Participants in the tea party destroyed 342 chests of tea on the
night of December 16, 1773. According to Charles Bahne, author of
The Complete Guide to Boston’s Freedom Trail, this amounted to
more than 46 tons of tea leaves. Such an amount could have brewed
18,523,000 cups of tea! The East India Company reported losses of
£9,659 after the Boston Tea Party. This would amount to a million
dollars in today’s money!
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Who participated in the
Boston Tea Party?
It is well known that patriots Samuel Adams, Josiah Quincy and
John Hancock were present at the December 16, 1773 meeting at the
Old South Meeting House preceding the dumping of the tea. However,
the men who actually destroyed the tea at Griffin’s Wharf are less
well-known. Most of the estimated 200 Boston Tea Party participants
remained anonymous for many years for fear of punishment. Among the
purported participants, the best known are silversmith and patriot
Paul Revere, and Dr. Thomas Young, John Adam’s family physician.
George Robert Twelves Hughes, a 31 year old shoemaker (whose statue
stands in the exhibit at the Old South Meeting House) told the story
of his participation in the Boston Tea Party to a journalist in 1835
when he was in his 90’s. His account can be read in Alfred Young’s
book The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American
Revolution.
Click here to see a
complete list of Boston Tea Party participants
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