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Boston Tea Party

George Robert Twelves Hewes, A Last Survivor of the Boston Tea Party

For many years after the Boston Tea Party, the identities of the men who participated remained a closely guarded secret. But time passed, and the people who threw the tea into Boston Harbor came out of obscurity. Here is the story of one of them, George Robert Twelves Hewes.

The Boston Tea Party

Tensions had been growing since 1765 as Britain imposed more taxes on the colonists. Although most taxes had been lifted by 1773, the tea tax remained and Parliament bailed out the East India Company. In September, ships of East India Company tea sailed from London, bound for four American cities. In Boston, many of the merchants who had shops near Griffin’s Wharf began gathering in the Old South Meeting House to debate the tea tax. Many belonged to the Sons of Liberty, a radical political organization. On December 16^th, the crowd rushed to the wharf. Some began throwing tea into the harbor, in what later became known as the Boston Tea Party. A detailed timeline of the tea party can be found here.

The Boston Tea Party

George Robert Twelves Hewes, the Shoemaker

One of the men who actively participated was George Robert Twelves Hewes (1742-1840), a poor shoemaker who had a shop along the wharf. George was born in Boston in 1742 to George Hewes and Abigail Seaver. He was baptized in the Old South Church, and named George after his father, Robert after an uncle, and Twelves after his maternal grandmother Abigail Twelves (or Twell) of Braintree.

George’s father, a tanner, died in 1749. According to Encyclopedia.com, George was sent to family members in Wrentham. He then apprenticed to a shoemaker in Boston. He later opened his own shoe shop on Griffin’s Wharf. In 1768 he married Sally Sumner, and they had 15 children. They named their eleventh child Eleven Hewes, and their fifteenth George Robert Twelves Fifteen Hewes (often listed as George R.T.F.).

At one point George tried to enlist in the British army to serve against the French. The army rejected him because of his height: 5’ 1”.

Paul Revere’s famous engraving of the Boston massacre.

George Robert Twelves Hewes Joins the Tea Party

George’s revolutionary participation began in 1770 during the Boston Massacre, as mentioned at Boston Tea Party Ship. He joined the mob of apprentices harassing British soldiers, and went home with a sore shoulder from a British rifle butt.

The Massacre further enraged the colonists. By early December of 1773, three ships moored in Boston harbor, laden with tea — the Dartmouth, the Eleanor and the Beaver. On the night of December 16th, thousands attended a meeting at the Old South Meeting House. Afterward, many headed to the wharf, disguised with blackened faces and tomahawks. Each ship had a boarding crew, and George Hewes was appointed as boatswain (a de facto officer) on the Dartmouth. That night, they broke 342 chests of tea and threw them into the water. The armed British ships that surrounded them made no attempt to interfere.

However, Britain then passed the Intolerable Acts. The legislation closed the harbor, moved judicial authority to Britain and ended the Massachusetts Constitution and free elections of town officials. The other colonies sent aid to Boston and began plotting further resistance, That led to the first Continental Congress in March 1774, and finally “the shot heard round the world” in 1775, which began the Revolutionary War.

The Revolutionary War

As the war began George sent his growing family to Wrentham, his father’s hometown. During the war, he served in the militia and as a privateer. According to his 1832 pension application, found on familysearch.org and fold3.com, George served as a seaman, commanded by Capt. Samuel Smedley on the ship Defence for seven months, 15 days. He also served as a private for nine months in Attleboro. And he served as a privateer in Providence, where he assisted in the capture of several British ships. Wikipedia mentions that he also went on a secret expedition in 1777 for 35 days in Massachusetts.

George Robert Twelves Hewes Revolutionary War record

After the war, he lived with his large family in Wrentham, as found in the censuses of 1790-1810. The family had 12 members by 1800. After 1812, George followed several of his children to Richfield Springs, in Otsego County, New York.

The 1830s and Beyond

During the 1830s, the Revolution revived in people’s memory. Cities and towns remembered soldiers and events from the war and commemorated battles from 50 years ago. In 1833 James Hawkes published a biography of George Hewes entitled A Retrospect of the Boston Tea Party. In 1835 Benjamin B. Thatcher also published a memoir, Traits of the Boston Tea Party, Being a Memoir of George Robert Twelves Hewes. It included an interview with George, who gave firsthand accounts of the tea party. More information can be found at Georgehewes.com, which includes quotes from the memoir. There is also a photo of his powder horn, with the inscription, “George Hewes his horn Roxbury 1775 God Armeth Ye Patriot.”

A Tea Party party announcement

George R.T. Hewes was fast becoming recognized as one of the last survivors of the Boston Tea Party. According to historyextra.com (BBC), he went to Boston in 1835 and Fourth of July celebrants cheered him as a guest of honor. Joseph Cole even painted a portrait of Hewes, which hangs in Boston’s Old State House.

George Robert Twelves Hewes

Much later, Alfred F. Young published The Shoemaker and the Tea Party in 1999. The Boston Globe reviewed it that August. Young stated that in the early years after the war, celebrations tended to be conservative so as “not to reignite the fires of public protest.” But by the 1830’s the more radical events were being commemorated.

Boston Transcript story quoting George R.T. Hewes

Tea Party Centennial

There were many celebrations held in 1873, the centennial of the Tea Party. The Boston Globe published a notice of one held at Faneuil Hall on December 16. Years later, in 1895, the Boston Post mentioned the celebration held for the Tea Party’s 122^nd anniversary.

Boston Post story about the celebration,

Because George lived to a ripe old age, he was one of the few Tea Party participants whose memories were later recorded and published. He was not a famous John Hancock or a Paul Revere, but an ordinary man, a poor shoemaker, who caught people’s attention. In his later years, he was still poor, living a quiet life with various relatives in and near Otsego County, New York. He still participated in festivities every Fourth of July. He was probably the man of 100 years listed in the household of William Morrison, his son-in-law, in nearby German Flats in the 1840 census.

Wikipedia states that George was injured in an accident on July 4, 1840, and died on November 5. Several newspapers reported that he died in German Flats (Herkimer County), near Richfield Springs. The Hartford Courant stated that his remains were sent to Richfield, where he had lived for many years. Most newspapers reported his age as 106 or even 109, which is unlikely, as he was probably 98. According to Historyextra.com, his leadership during the tea party was praised, declaring that “in the heat of the conflict, the small man with the large name had been elevated from a poor shoemaker to Captain Hewes.”

Today, the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum is attempting to list all the tea party participants with brief biographies, and there is also a descendant’s program. More information can be found here.

Rebecca Rector of Troy, N.Y., is a history and genealogy researcher, and retired librarian from Siena College. She has been transcribing letters and diaries for Newberry Library and National Archives for the past three years.

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The Story of the Boston Tea Party in Myth and Reality

Every young student of the American Revolution knows the story of the Boston Tea Party. The dastardly British imposed yet another tax on the colonists, this one on the importation of tea. Enraged by this affront to their liberty, the colonists rose up in rebellion. On Dec. 16, 1773, a large group of patriots, most from the Sons of Liberty, dressed themselves as Indians. They boarded British ships carrying government tea in Boston Harbor. Then they threw chests of tea overboard in violent protest.

The action instantly became a cause celebre that led directly to the events at Lexington and Concord two years later.

American history is rife with such myths as well as outright fiction. Much of that “knowledge” originated in the 19^th century. Then it got carried forward into the 20^th and 21^st centuries. The culprits: poor historical research, sensational dime novels and acceptance as fact by the public without question. Plymouth Rock, the first Thanksgiving, and Paul Revere’s Ride are but three of countless skewed histories that have become “fact” through bad historical writing.

The Story of the Boston Tea Party

It is a wonderful, rabble-rousing story, and as with much popular history, it even has a grain of truth. The problem is that the real truth was much more complicated, and the history as most Americans know it was more myth than reality. Historical myths usually arise because the truth is either less glamourous, or less flattering. Like movie directors, 19^th and 20^th century historians never let truth get in the way of telling a good story.

Let’s start with something simple –- the event name. Of course, Bostonians immediately began to call it the “Boston Tea Party” and the name spread throughout the colonies. Except that they didn’t, and it didn’t. For 50 years after the event, it was known as “the destruction of the tea in Boston Harbor,” or variations. Not exactly a rallying cry for rebellion.

It wasn’t until 1825 that a newspaper reported that W. P. Hawes, at a dinner celebrating the landing of the Pilgrims, raised a toast to “The Boston Tea-party.” By the time the name became popular, and into modern times, most people assume that “party” means a “blast,” a “bash” or some type of celebratory event. “Party” served as a play on words to heighten the insult to the Crown.

In fact, even when Hawes coined the phrase, “party” referred to the group of men involved, not the event. When Nicholas Campbell died in 1829, his obituary referred to him as “…one of the ever memorable Boston Tea Party.” Careless use of a phrase created out of thin air has been repeated by historians who failed to do due diligence. That poor history then found its way, among other places, into school history books.

Those Disguises

Regardless of the name, a pillar of the story is that colonists dressed as Indians. That must be true, right? Well…sort of, but not exactly! Some dressed as Indians, with a few histories claiming they dressed as Mohawks. But New Englanders didn’t know much about Mohawks, located mostly in the New York area. More likely, many men did dress as Indians, but probably more in a generic form than tribe specific. Many others simply took on any convenient disguise.

Remember, this was a highly illegal action. If caught, the perpetrators were destined for jail and hefty fines. The underlying text of the myth makes much of the Indian disguise. But it conveniently glosses over the essential fact that it was a disguise, including blackened faces, much as a robber wears a mask to hide his identity. The actions taken that day were criminal. As with most criminals, they went to great lengths to ensure they were not recognized. Of the hundreds of male participants in the act, only 116 have been identified by name. Most did not want their name associated with the action, even after the end of the Revolution.

Those Boxes of Tea

At least the image of men throwing chest of tea overboard is accurate. Boston Tea Party tours have often portrayed people throwing small boxes overboard (tied to ropes for recovery!) to reenact the event. But the real boxes filled with loose tea weighed 400 pounds! While we like to think of our ancestors as big and bold, they were not big enough to lift 400-pound boxes. Remember, this was an illegal act, and time was not on their side. They did dump tea into the harbor, however. They took the simple expedient of breaking open the crates and throwing the loose tea overboard. Unfortunately, many of the later popular illustrations of the event depict men throwing over boxes of tea intact.

The brig Beaver at the Boston Tea Party Museum. From the Peter H. Dreyer slide collection

What about the fact that they were attacking a King’s ship transporting the King’s tea? Surely that part of the story is true. Unfortunately, none of that is true. The three ships bringing tea into Boston Harbor, the Dartmouth, Eleanor and Beaver, were privately owned, colonial-built, colonial captained and crewed ships. They were transporting tea belonging to the East India Company, not the British government. The British government lost nothing monetarily. The government’s loss was solely to their honor. The monetary loss fell to the ships’ colonial owners and East India Company.

Losses

Throughout history, the loss of the tea to the owners comes as an afterthought. After all, how much could it have cost them? In fact, the loss was substantial. The colonists destroyed 340 chests of tea. The private owners of the tea, the East India Company, suffered a loss in today’s value of from $1.5 million to $2 million! They never recovered from the loss.

The ships’ owners would have also suffered a substantial loss since they were stuck with the remnants of a cargo they could not deliver. Therefore, they could not get paid for the trip. The act went well beyond simple vandalism. Mob mentality ruled the day, and among the losers at the time were their own colonial brothers.

Sam Adams

The meeting that led to the destruction of the tea was chaired by Samuel Adams at the Old South Meeting House. It was largely in response to Massachusetts Gov. Thomas Hutchinson’s refusal to let the tea ships leave without paying the duty. That is, Hutchinson wouldn’t let them leave without unloading but still paying the duty as though they had unloaded their cargo.

Sam Adams

Almost half the population of Boston, 6,000 to 7,000 people, attended the meeting. It is difficult to know if Adams meant specifically for a mob to form and attack the tea ships. But his speech that day led just to that outcome.

The actions of the mob were, as most mob actions, not planned. But certainly, some of the Sons of Liberty must have been planning some action since people don’t normally have quick availability to disguises. In fact, of the thousands at the meeting, only a few hundred took part in any way in the actual dumping of the tea. While Adams may or may not have planned the destruction of the cargo, he had no problem immediately defending the actions of the mob. Proving that recreating history is not a modern invention, he claimed the act was not lawlessness. Instead, he argued, citizens legally protested the infringement of their rights.

Story of the Boston Tea Party Rallying Cry

Regardless of all the inaccuracies, surely the action was lauded by all the colonists and used as a rallying cry for eventual Revolution. That is a modern retelling rife with untruth. At the time, most condemned the action, and other similar, less violent ones that took place at New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston. Men such as George Washington did not support the action at Boston, and Benjamin Franklin even suggested that Massachusetts repay the East India Company. The fact that the participants hid their identities from everyone speaks volumes for their unpopularity.

East India Co. coat of arms

Of course, the mainstay of the story of the Boston Tea Party is that this was yet another tax burden for the colonists, who were now saddled with higher prices for a necessary commodity. No wonder they rose in opposition. Sorry, completely false. There was no tax imposed or increased.

What the Tea Act did was to refund the East India Company’s 25 percent duty on importing tea into Britain. It also allowed them to export tea directly to the North American colonies through their own colonial merchants, cutting out the cost of the middleman. The Tea Act amounted to a buyout for the East India Company, which suffered losses on the tea they imported from India. It gave then a practical monopoly on tea because they could always undersell their competitors.

This effectively allowed the East India Company to undercut colonial importers and smugglers. It hurt the legal importers of tea who still had to pay the tax but had no recourse to a refund as did the East India Company. Therefore, they had to charge higher prices. But it especially hurt men such as Samuel Adams, John Hancock and others who had a thriving business smuggling Dutch East Indian tea. They could still smuggle the tea, but the prices they could charge were now higher, or at best equal to, the price the East India Company could charge.

Taxation Without Representation

Adams, Hancock and numerous others were the same merchants who coincidently belonged to the Sons of Liberty who staged the whole affair. They had a vested monetary interest in opposing the tax break given to the East India Company. Somehow, the merchant base of the Sons of Liberty, whose pockets were the most affected by the new Tea Act, managed to change the reality of cheaper tea for the consumer into an affront on their liberty.

John Singleton Copley painted this portrait of John Hancock around 1771. Copley’s father-in-law lost heavily because of the destruction of the tea. Courtesy Massachusetts Historical Society.

The protest essentially became one of taxation without representation, always a hot-button issue in the colonies. In the past, this cause had a lot of merit, particularly when tied to the Parliamentary acts that taxed the colonies for multiple items, essentially to raise money for colonial governance. The Townsend Revenue Act of 1767 imposed yet another tax on tea and other commodities in the colonies, and it sparked widespread protest. By 1770, however, Parliament repealed the Act, except for the tax on tea. But the repeal of the act was enough to quell colonial protests.

Thus, it was not a tax hike, but a tax break to a competitor, that led to the dumping of the tea. The unrest due to taxation without representation still lay simmering below the surface. Some colonial leaders could easily stoke the fire with a little skewed propaganda. In reality, the 1773 protest against the importation of tea had little to do with this issue. It was not a colonial cause celebre.

An Alternate Story of the Boston Tea Party?

It is hard to “what-if” history. But it is interesting to speculate what would have happened if the British did not overdramatize an event that, at the time, did not have widespread support. That support came only after the British government overreacted by instituting the Coercive Acts of 1774. Only then did the dumping of the tea in Boston Harbor begin to gain popular appeal as a rallying cry against real and perceived wrongs.

Images: Brig Beaver at Boston Tea Party Museum By City of Boston Archives from West Roxbury, United States – Brig Beaver and Boston Tea Party Museum, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37036640. East India coat of arms By This W3C-unspecified vector image was created with Inkscape . – Own work, based upon [1], CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15648243.

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Boston Riots Once Every 3 Years — for Centuries

Boston riots during the 18^th century happened so often you could have called the town Riot City.

Between 1700 and 1764, 28 riots broke out in Boston. During the same time, New York had only four, and Philadelphia had just six, according to historian Jack Tager.

Police try to quell a Boston riot after the Red Sox World Series victory in 2007.

The Boston riots encompassed all classes. Gentlemen and college students rioted, as did the poor. Women and children rioted for bread and meat. Bostonians protested against customs regulations, brothels and the impressment of sailors. Several Pope Day riots targeted Catholicism and led to the Stamp Act riot. Other Boston rioters attacked immigrants and union organizers. Sometimes the police rioted, but at least one rioted erupted when the police went on strike.

Michael Hindus studied Boston riots and reached a conclusion in a 1971 essay, A City of Mobocrats and Tyrants: Mob Violence in Boston, 1747-1863.

My study of rioting in Boston over an extended period has convinced me that too many types of people took to the streets for too many different reasons for any single formula to apply.

In other words, everyone seemed to riot in Boston.

The Boston Revolt

Tager counted 103 Boston riots from 1700 to 1976, or one riot every 2.76 years. But one man’s riot is another man’s revolt. In 1689, Bostonians engaged in actions the British government almost certainly viewed as a riot. Boston, however, called it a revolt.

King James II gave Bostonians a convenient target for their ire. He consolidated the northern colonies into the Dominion of New England and sent Sir Edmund Andros to rein them in. Andros cracked down on the forbidden activities of smuggling and trading with the French and Dutch. He also infuriated the Puritan elders by holding an Anglican service in a Puritan meeting house. The papist had to go!

Andros is taken prisoner during the Boston Riot, er, Revolt.

So armed Bostonians and militiamen from nearby towns seized Andros and his people and threw him in jail. The Protestant William of Orange, meanwhile, seized power in England, and Boston got away with it. Andros went back to the United Kingdom.

Boston Riots Over Food

In the 18^th century war and economic stagnation created chronic food shortages.

Boston riots first kicked into gear during Queen Anne’s War, which lasted from 1702 to 1713. The costs of the war fell heavily on Boston’s poor, who had to fight it in the north and cope with grain shortages at home. War profiteers hoarded grain to raise prices and gouge their customers, or else they shipped it to the Caribbean to feed the slaves on sugar plantations.

In 1707, poor women dumped out chamber pots on the heads of soldiers marching home from war. Then in 1710, Boston men tried to sabotage a grain-filled ship owned by war profiteer Andrew Belcher. The ship lay at anchor, about to depart Boston Harbor for the West Indies. One man rowed out and smashed the rudder; the next day 50 men rowed out and tried to force the captain to come ashore. Authorities had some rabble-rousers arrested, but didn’t charge them with anything because they had so much public support.

Riots and looting broke out the next year when a fire left 100 families homeless.

Then in 1713, Belcher once again shipped Indian corn to the Caribbean. Boston selectmen warned him against it, but Belcher refused.

Two hundred poor men broke in to Belcher’s warehouse, trashed it and wounded the lieutenant governor. Boston selectmen responded by passing a law that said grain could not be exported in times of food shortage. Grain also had to be sold at a set price to one of a group of 15 people. In 1714 the town established a granary where the poor could buy grain at below-market prices.

Another Boston riot over food broke out in 1737, when the price of meat skyrocketed. Rioters, including many volunteer firefighters, tore down butchers’ stalls.

More Food Riots

Merchant hoarding inspired 14 food riots in Boston during the American Revolution, including some led by women. Abigail Adams witnessed one and described it to her husband in a letter. “There has been much rout and Noise in the Town for several weeks,” she wrote.

Abigail Adams, 1766 (Benjamin Blythe)

During the Kosher Meat Riot of 1902, Jewish men, women and children led the battle against local butchers in the city’s poor neighborhoods. They were angry because the price of kosher beef suddenly rose to 18 cents a pound from 12 cents a pound.

The butchers blamed the Beef Trust in Chicago. Hundreds of Jews didn’t buy it or didn’t care. They formed picket lines outside the butcher shops, first in the North End, then a few days later in the West End. They smashed windows, threw rotten food at the shops and destroyed the product. Ten years later, history repeated itself with another meat riot.

Press Gang Riots

Bostonians rioted for three days against British press gangs in 1747. They’d had plenty of practice: they’d rioted twice in 1741 and once in 1746 against the press gangs.

Caricature of a British press gang

The British Royal Navy had a predilection for capturing — or ‘impressing’ — random American seamen and forcing them to work aboard his royal majesty’s warships. King George’s War was on in 1747, and mariners knew life aboard ship in wartime was harsh and dangerous.

So it did not go over well when, on Nov. 16 and 17, British press gangs rounded up 46 shocked sailors and tradesmen along the waterfront. About 300 men retaliated by capturing a British navy lieutenant. The riot escalated when Gov. William Shirley tried to call out the militia, who refused to respond. Shirley characterized the rioters as “seamen and a great number of lewd and profligate persons.” In reality, the respectable upper-class militiamen supported them. Shirley called them “ill-minded.”

The impressment riot helped set the stage for the American Revolution. It taught Boston that authorities couldn’t do much to suppress large-scale uprisings, wrote Hindus.

Draft Riots

Then in 1863, the Boston draft riot earned less notice than the draft riot in New York. The main actors were working-class white men who couldn’t afford the $300 to get out of the draft. They attacked an armory with women and children helping supply paving stones and ammunition. The women, fearing the poverty they’d suffer if the breadwinner went off to war, held up their children and dared militia to shoot them.

A century later, on April 9, 1969 Harvard police rioted. Thirty students protesting the Vietnam War took over University Hall, driving out the office workers ‘under duress.’ One student physically carried a dean out of the building. Hundreds more joined them, until police stormed the building. They handled the students roughly and injured many of them.

In 1970, a protest against the draft and the Vietnam War at Northeastern University erupted into a riot.

Stamp Act Riot

Annual Pope Night brawls between North and South End gangs in Boston had escalated up until then. They began with raucous parades making fun of the Roman Catholic pope, then turned into brawls—or riots, if you prefer–and a celebratory bonfire.

Attack on Gov. Hutchinson’s house

John Hancock and Sam Adams wanted to stir up trouble, and they found a reliable ally in Ebenezer Mackintosh, the leader of the South End gang.

During the Stamp Act Riot of Aug. 26, 1765, a mob ransacked the mansion of Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson. Gov. Francis Bernard feared more violence a few months later on Pope Night, so he called out the militia from October 31 to November 6—the day before the Stamp Act took effect and the day after Pope Night. The militia stayed home.

That ushered in a penchant for riots that included the Liberty Affair in 1765, the Boston Massacre in 1770 and the Boston Tea Party of 1773.

Boston Riots Over Race and Slavery

In 1819 came a new wave of Boston riots, sparked by immigration, class-conflict and slavery.

Sixty African-Americans carrying clubs, knives and hatchets in 1819 confronted a group of white people who had captured a runaway slave. The whites fought off the rescuers and arrested 15, but not before one of them was injured.

During the 1829 Gentleman’s Riot, 1,500 members of Boston’s elite class, along with their clerks, rioted against abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. Many had made fortunes in textile manufacturing, which gobbled up cotton harvested by slaves in the south.

When the gentlemen assembled, Mayor Theodore Lyman stood on a chair and asked them to desist. They didn’t, but marched to the Female Anti-Slavery Society to break it up, then went for Garrison. They tied him up and started to drag him through the streets, but two men rescued him. He holed up in the old statehouse. Then a coach provided by authorities took Garrison to jail and charged him with disturbing the peace. In the end, they let him go.

A smaller confrontation developed in 1843. “In Boston on August 27, 1843, sailors beat four blacks. When the victims defended themselves, a larger crowd gathered and assaulted every black person in sight,” wrote Paul A. Gilje in Rioting in America.

More Slavery Riots

During the Boston Slave riot of 1854, abolitionists led by Brahmin Thomas Wentworth Higginson armed themselves with axes. They attacked a courthouse in which fugitive slave Anthony Burns was held. They failed to free him, and the governor placed Boston under martial law.

Anthony Burns

Then in 1903, a speech by Booker T. Washington to the Business League at the African Methodist Episcopal Church turned into a battle between his African-American followers and those of William Monroe Trotter. Trotter thought Washington too much of an Uncle Tom, and his followers hissed and shouted during Washington’s speech. A melee erupted as Washington spoke. His followers provoked a melee in which someone threw red pepper and stink bombs. Twenty-five police showed up and arrested Trotter.

Anti-Irish Riots

Many ethnic riots, but not all, started because the Yankee laboring poor feared losing their livelihoods to the cheap workforce arriving from Ireland. The Yankees developed a predilection for beating up the Irish and trashing their homes.

In 1823, Yankee workmen rioted against Irish immigrants, throwing stones through the windows of their homes.

That was only a prelude to the Brothel Riots of 1825, when Yankee firefighters, teamsters and mechanics tore down two notorious West End brothels, the Beehive and the Tin Pot. Michael Hindus notes that the teamsters, or truckmen, had become the ‘fellows to call when any game was on foot in those days.’ They seemed to like fighting for its own sake, sometimes rioting, sometimes suppressing riots.

The mood that generated the growth of the Know Nothing Party of the mid-1800s showed up early in Massachusetts. This cartoon, "Uncle Sam's Boarding House" from Puck Magazine, highlights the party's anti-immigrant platform.

The mood that generated the growth of the Know Nothing Party of the mid-1800s showed up early in Massachusetts. This cartoon, “Uncle Sam’s Lodging House” from Puck Magazine, highlights the party’s anti-immigrant platform.

During three days of rioting in July 1826, Yankee laborers nearly destroyed the Irish section of Boston. Hindus speculates the deaths of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson on July 4 may have inspired a torrent of nativist feeling. The clear meaning of the Revolution was getting muddied by immigrants and their strange Catholic symbols and rituals.

In 1834, a group of anti-Irish Know Nothings burned down an Ursuline convent in Charlestown.

In 1837 came the Broad Street riot. That year, a financial panic caused hard times throughout the country and economic uncertainty for Yankee laborers. Irish immigrants fought mostly volunteer Yankee firefighters on Broad Street. Ten thousand spectators egged on the 800 combatants, and the melee didn’t end until Mayor Samuel Eliot called in the state militia.

1917 Anti-Union Riot

On July 1, 1917, union members and socialists organized a peaceful parade of men, women and babies through the streets to a mass meeting on Boston Common. Mother’s League, Amalgamated Clothing Workers, Labor League 20 and the Lithuanians of Boston. Soldiers and sailors attacked the marchers, trampled their banners and burned their pamphlets in the street. After an hour and a half of fighting, the police intervened.

A fight also broke out in Scollay Square, after the police superintendent revoked a peace advocate’s permit to speak.

Ghetto Riots of 1967-68

Boston had a relatively small African-American population until the 1950s, when many migrated north for better jobs and opportunity. But Boston grew increasingly inhospitable to its black population. Urban renewal destroyed neighborhoods and the local government offered little economic or political advancement.

In June 1967, a dozen women calling themselves Mothers for Adequate welfare locked themselves into a welfare office in the Grove Hall section of Roxbury. Police tried to eject them, and a fight broke out. The fight escalated into a large scale riot, as angry young people stoned police cars, smashed windows and set fires. Police arrested 30 rioters, while dozens of on both sides went to hospital with injuries.

That Boston riot mirrored African-American uprisings throughout the United States, riots that continued after an assassin killed Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4.

Immediately after King’s death, James Brown agreed to let his concert at Boston Garden be televised to keep young African-Americans at home. The hardest working man in show biz did keep many young African Americans rooted to their TV sets. But others stoned cars on Blue Hill Avenue, looted liquor stores, burned a furniture store and beat up some white people. The Boston riot, however, was more contained than those in Washington or Chicago or Detroit.

1972 Puerto Rican Riots

New England’s Puerto Rican riots have been largely forgotten. But three days of Boston riots erupted in the South End in July 1972 during a Puerto Rican Day celebration.

The Boston Globe reported the fight grew into a confrontation between bystanders and more than 100 policemen. Mostly young Puerto Ricans set buildings on fire, damaged police cruisers and stoned passing cars. The police were criticized for aggravating the situation.

Luis Palmarin, a South End resident, told the Globe: “The cop arrested me when I tried to stop him from beating a man who was bleeding badly. He threw me in the car, grabbed a soda bottle from the floor, called me a spic and hit me in the face with the bottle.”

Boston City Councilman Albert “Dapper” O’Neil made the situation worse by ordering the police to “club those maggots and leeches out of the park.”

Police Riots

Economic hardship followed the boom years of World War I and unions ramped up their organizing efforts. On May Day, a day to celebrate international labor solidarity, socialists held a meeting in Roxbury at the Dudley Street Opera House.

Boston’s Roman Catholic churches had railed against socialists to their Irish parishioners. The Opera House meeting erupted into a brawl between the socialists on one side and police and weapon-wielding onlookers, including soldiers and sailors, on the other. When the hourlong brawl ended, police arrested 113 people and put them in crowded cells, their walls splashed with blood. Two police officers and a civilian were shot and dozens injured. In the end, two died.

Coolidge called up the militia to quell violence during the Boston police strike

Four months later, the police themselves went on strike for better wages and shorter hours. Young men ran wild, smashing shop windows and looting the merchandise, throwing rocks at streetcars and overturning street vendors’ carts. Gov. Calvin Coolidge called out the militia, who, along with Harvard students and upper-class volunteers, tried to quell the violence. The militia restored peace at the cost of eight lives, and Coolidge replaced the striking police with strikebreakers.

Anti-Busing Riots of 1974-76

Nearly everyone knows about the Boston riots against school desegregation from 1974 to 1976. The ferocity of opposition to busing set Boston apart as the Little Rock of the North.

In 1974, U.S. District Court Judge Arthur Garrity, Jr., came up with a plan to bus schoolchildren between black and white neighborhoods in order to comply with the Racial Imbalance Act of 1965. In response, Boston School Committee Chair Louise Day Hicks formed Restore Our Alienated Rights, and the group led demonstrations, prayer vigils, marches and sit-ins.

Sporadic violence broke out on both sides. A white youth tried to beat a black lawyer with an American flag, and a black teenager stabbed a white teenager in South Boston High school. The school closed down for a month, and Garrity fired the principal and took control himself. Five hundred police officers guarded South Boston High every day in 1975.

With thanks to Jack Tager, Boston Riots: Three Centuries of Social Violence. This story was updated in 2022.

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Bostonians Practice Their Tea Party on Andrew Belcher in 1710

Sixty-three years before the Boston Tea Party, outraged men launched a nighttime attack on a ship belonging to Andrew Belcher in Boston Harbor. And in a preview of upcoming events, they intended to remove the ship’s cargo.

But it was bread, not tea that enraged the attackers.

Belcher had singlehandedly caused a bread shortage in 1710, and Bostonians decided to take justice into their own hands.

Boston Harbor around 1720

Andrew Belcher

Less than a century after the Puritans landed in a howling wilderness, Boston merchants engaged in international trade – with the West Indies, Newfoundland, Portugal, Spain, England and Ireland. Entrepreneurs sold whatever they could on the international market at the best prices they could, regardless of the welfare of their community.

Andrew Belcher, one such entrepreneur, was born in 1646 in Cambridge, Mass. He married the daughter of a rich Connecticut merchant and established his own successful trading business.

He lived in a mansion, rode around Boston in an elegant carriage and owned many slaves and ships. His son, Jonathan Belcher, would serve as royal governor.

Gov. Jonathan Belcher

In 1703, Massachusetts officials made Andrew Belcher commissary general, though his critics charged he sometimes sold spoiled food.

The working poor of Boston had no use for him either. He hoarded grain in his warehouses during food shortages and then shipped it off to the West Indies.

The 1710 Food Riot

By 1710. Queen Anne’s War had started. Food grew short and bread grew terribly expensive. Andrew Belcher bought up all the wheat in the countryside surrounding Boston. Then he held it until prices went up, and sold it to himself as commissary general for a very nice profit.

He singlehandedly caused a bread shortage in Boston.

One night one of his ships was about to sail away with 6,000 bushels of grain. Under cover of darkness a group of marauders approached the ship and sawed through the rudder, according to Judge Samuel Sewall’s diary.

Samuel Sewall

The next night 50 Bostonians commandeered the ship and tried to force the captain ashore, intending to loot the grain. Authorities arrested some of the attackers.

But their Grain Party was so popular a grand jury refused to indict them.

The incident revealed the transformation of Boston from a Puritanical city on a hill, with an emphasis on the common good, to an ethic of individualism. The Bostonians were “appalled that a leading townsman would put profits ahead of the welfare of the community,” wrote historian Gary Nash. They demanded food at prices they could afford, despite merchants’ insistence on the laws of supply and demand.

Authorities responded by banning the sale of grain abroad during times of shortages, regulating bread prices and establishing a public granary.

The 1713 Food Riot

Three years later, Andrew Belcher tried it again with a similar result. He hoarded grain in his warehouses while prices rose, then tried to sell it in Dutch Curacao in the Caribbean. Two hundred Bostonians attacked his warehouses and emptied them of flour. When the lieutenant governor tried to stop them, they shot him.

Andrew Belcher died Oct. 31, 1717.

If you enjoyed this story about Andrew Belcher, you may also want to read about the female food riots of the American Revolution in Boston here or the 1914 macaroni riots in Providence here.

With thanks to Red White & Black and The Urban Crucible: The Northern Seaports and the Origins of the American Revolution by Gary Nash.

This story last updated in 2023.

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The Revolutionary Holidays You May or May Not Celebrate

Revolutionary holidays didn’t start and end with Independence Day.

When the Revolutionary War ended, Trumbull, Conn., celebrated with A Great Jubilee Day on May 26, 1783. The grand event featured militia maneuvers, feasting, prayer, speeches and toasts. The town was then called Stratford, and the holiday is now called Memorial Day.

Historic reenactment at Mount Independence

Holidays used to be local affairs, and they often moved around the calendar. For many years, the entire United States celebrated only two annual holidays: Washington’s Birthday and the Fourth of July. Much of New England, of course, didn’t celebrate Christmas.

Early Thanksgivings happened when state or local officials decided it happened. In 1816, for example, Massachusetts celebrated Thanksgiving on November 28, while New Hampshire observed it on November 14. It wasn’t until 1941 that Congress passed a federal law making Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday in November.

New Englanders continue to celebrate Revolutionary holidays that commemorate events in the war with Britain. They tend to happen in the summer, often to attract tourists to their craft fairs, parades and reenactments.

Revolutionary Holidays in RI and Vermont

The Burning of the Gaspee by Charles deWolf Brownell, c1892

Since 1965, Pawtuxet Village in Warwick and Cranston, R.I., has celebrated Gaspee Days around Memorial Day. The festival commemorates Rhode Island’s version of the Boston Tea Party, when patriots burned a British customs schooner in 1772.

Celebrations of the Gaspee Affair in 2018 include a road race, parade, party, fireworks and reenactment of the ship burning.

In Vermont, Bennington Battle Day is celebrated every August 16. Vermont is perhaps the only state to commemorate an event that happened in another state. The Battle of Bennington, an important victory in the American Revolution, took place in 1777 in New York.

Bennington Battle Day happens every year with a battle reenactment, but the local historical society holds events throughout the summer. The 2018 Bennington Battle Celebration includes a road race, a ceremony at the memorial and a fashion show of historic costumes.

Powder House Day

New Haven celebrates Powder House Day every year to commemorate the events of April 22, 1775. Then Capt. Benedict Arnold and his Governor’s Foot Guard were eager to help out during the Siege of Boston. So they demanded the keys to the powder house so they could actually use their weapons.

Benedict Arnold celebrated in one of Connecticut’s revolutionary holidays.

Town Meeting had voted against sending help, but the Foot Guard ignored the vote.

Arnold sent a message to the selectmen that if he didn’t get the keys in five minutes, his men would break into the power house. He got the keys.

In 2018, New Haven celebrated Powder House Day on April 21 with a memorial service at the Center Church on the Green. Then a re-enactor playing Arnold marched across the Green and demands a key from the mayor. (Click here for the script.)

The day also featured carriage rides, a parade and tours of the new trees planted on the Green.

Margaretta Days

The first naval battle of the American Revolution took place in Machias, Maine (then Massachusetts). Today Margaretta Days is still one of Machias’ Revolutionary holidays.

During the Siege of Boston, British authorities asked Ichabod Jones, a Loyalist merchant in Machias, to help obtain supplies for the army. In June 1775, two of Jones’ vessels and the Margaretta, an armed British sloop, arrived in the harbor. The townspeople tried to arrest Jones on June 11 and went after the Margaretta’s commander, who escaped. The townspeople then seized one of Jones’ ships, armed a second and chased after the Margaretta. A short battle resulted in the death of the commander and several others, as well as the capture of the Margaretta.

In 2018, Machias celebrates Margaretta Days on June 16 with a reenactment, children’s activities, period foods and artisan demonstrations.

Hack Holidays

The Massachusetts Statehouse

Eighty years ago a state law gave two holidays to state and municipal workers in Boston and the rest of Suffolk County, but not to anyone else. Government workers could take off March 17, Evacuation Day, which commemorates the day British troops and Loyalist sympathizers began to leave Boston. They can also take off June 17 to observe the anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Critics say the Revolutionary holidays reflect Massachusetts’, shall we say, overdeveloped government bureaucracy. They ridicule the ‘hack holidays’ that occur once a month except for August, when government employees take long vacations anyway.

Massachusetts hack holidays include New Year’s Day and Martin Luther King Day in January, Presidents Day in February, Evacuation Day in March, Patriots Day in April, Memorial Day in May, Bunker Hill Day in June, Independence Day in July, Labor Day in September, Columbus Day in October, Veterans Day and Thanksgiving in November and Christmas in December.

Revolutionary Holidays That Disappeared

One of the Revolutionary holidays that disappeared was Boston’s Massacre Day.

Patriots celebrated the holiday every March 5 from 1771 to 1783 to commemorate the 1770 Boston Massacre. Each year a prominent patriot delivered a speech, which would then be printed. When 1783 brought the end of the American Revolution, Boston officials decided to replace Massacre Day with Independence Day.

Fast Day wasn’t one of the Revolutionary holidays until it became one.

Since at least 1670, New Englanders regularly set aside fast days to, well, fast, attend church and ask God for blessings.

Massachusetts celebrated Fast Day until 1894, when the Legislature changed it to Patriots’ Day to commemorate the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Maine jumped on the Revolutionary holidays bandwagon and did the same in 1897. New Hampshire clung to the Fast Day tradition until 1991, when it became Civil Rights Day in January.

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James Swan, The Man Who Financed Two Revolutions

In 1794, the Atlantic Ocean was a battleground, with the French and British at loggerheads. The British Navy, with the support of Spain and the Netherlands, blockaded French ports. Amid the chaos, Massachusetts’ James Swan saw the opportunity to make a fortune.

Swan played an important role during the American Revolution. Originally from Scotland, he had come to America as a merchant and financier. He also sided with the patriots. Swan had participated in the Boston Tea Party, survived wounds at the Battle of Bunker Hill and helped fund the Massachusetts militias in the early days of the war.

After hostilities ceased in America, Swan became an investor, buying land in Maine (Swans Island, for example). He also bought real estate in Boston and speculated in properties previously owned by loyalists. But the recession that followed the war hit his investments hard, so much so he feared bankruptcy.

Swan therefore turned his attention to France. Armed with introductions from a few French acquaintances, he journeyed to Paris. There he began studying the French language, its industries and its raucous politics.

James Swan Sees His Opportunity

France at the time headed into a 10-year period of great turmoil caused by the French Revolution. The Reign of Terror had quickly followed the overthrow of the monarchy and establishment of a new republic. Church leaders and members of the aristocracy were beheaded by the thousands. But Britain and her allies turned against the new republic and started a blockade.

James Swan by Gilbert Stuart, 1795

The radical new leaders of France needed supplies for the military and food for the people. And by 1793, Swan had positioned himself perfectly. Swan had a cardinal rule in business. He always dealt with the leader of any organization he approached. If a company or political organization didn’t show him into the offices of its chief leader, he politely moved on. In this way he collected an impressive range of contacts.

Swan had learned a thing or two about acquiring goods during wartime. He assured the French they could find food and supplies, even from their British and Dutch “enemies,” for the right terms. Pay a decent price and assume the risks that cargoes would be seized and they would have all the supplies they needed. Accept delivery at the port and ask no questions about where a shipment came from, he advised. Also, allow delivering ships to slip away quickly because Dutch and British merchants would not want to be identified trading with an enemy.

Swan assured his French contacts that if they could do so secretly, British and Dutch merchants would appreciate a good return on their sales.

He advised the French could also obtain cargo by having a British- or Dutch-flagged ship stray close to French waters. Then the ship could allow a French vessel to “seize” its cargo, with payment made through back channels.

Food for the People

Swan found himself in the enviable position of having extensive connections with suppliers in America and elsewhere. He also had a newfound knowledge of French markets and import procedures.

The French government then created a commission to procure food supplies. It appointed Swan as an emissary to America. He had instructions to buy food (the country needed tons of flour), lumber, leather and other goods.

In return, Swan was offered French goods to dispose of in America. The belongings of the now-missing French aristocracy could be disposed of in America, where luxury goods were highly sought after. French fabrics, furniture and wines could be exported. Precious metals and gems seized from churches and wealthy aristocrats could be converted into hard currency. And all Swan asked for his services was a two percent commission on the transactions.

The crafty Swan managed to shift the form of his operations as the French government went through another jolting transition. In 1794 and 1795 he transitioned away from the food supply commission to a more market-based approach to importing foods.

Swan was not the only American supplying the French, but probably was its biggest supplier. He used his vast array of connections with American ship captains to keep France fed and functioning.

The Debts of a Nation

Yet Swan faced challenges. When the French entered a market as buyers, prices rose dramatically. Swan developed his own methods for trying to counter this. He would make a purchase and then hold off to give prices a chance to drop before placing more orders. But then his customers complained that supplies weren’t steady enough.

Further, he had to contend with the British Navy. The British were well aware of American involvement in supplying the French. Swan would “neutralize” his ships by making sure they were flagged in America, or another neutral country. But the British still seized American cargoes. They impounded one in seven of Swan’s vessels. His agents operating in Britain had a good track record of winning the ships back and receiving compensation for the cargoes, but the process took time.

A New Deal

In addition, he faced a limited market in trying to dispose of luxury goods in America. Further, the French had very limited credit. In late 1794, the French came up with a new idea to fund their need for imports. The French government had extended loans to America during the Revolution. During the recession after the war, the Americans had stopped making payments. So the loans were considered virtually worthless. But with Alexander Hamilton’s guidance, the American Treasury had stabilized, and these loans were once again viable.

The French authorized Swan to negotiate with America to sell back these loans to generate needed cash in 1795. Swan put together a deal with U.S. Treasury Secretary Oliver Wolcott. The American government issued new shares to raise money to repay the French. Some in America resisted buying the new shares, which had a value of more than $2 million to be repaid at 4.5 to 5.5 percent interest. Swan, however, found a ready market in Britain. British investors either did not know (or did not care) that in buying the American shares they were actually funding the French government.

A Return to America

During his years in Paris, Swan managed to put his affairs back on solid footing — and then some. But French and American relations soured as America made an alliance with Great Britain. Swan’s opportunities lessened. He planned to restore his wealth and return to America. There he would turn his attention to building his Dorchester, Mass. mansion and his American investments.

But Swan’s life took one more bizarre turn. On a return visit to France in 1808, Swan was accused of failing to pay a reasonably insignificant debt. He insisted he didn’t owe the money. The French courts disagreed, however, and had him imprisoned. Swan instructed his wife not to repay the debt. Instead she funneled him a small fortune so that he had a luxurious lifestyle throwing large parties at his prison apartment. If his enemies thought Swan would yield they were wrong. He remained in his “prison” for 22 years.

There are different theories about how James Swan died. He most likely left prison in 1830 as the result of a debt-forgiveness act by the government. Then he died the following year, a free and wealthy man.

Thank to: James Swan: Agent of the French Republic 1794-1796, Howard C. Rice, The New England Quarterly. This story was updated in 2022.

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