Tea Leaves: Being a Collection of Letters and Documents relating to; the shipment of Tea to the American Colonies in the year; 1773, by the East India Tea Company. (With an introduction,; notes, and biographical notices of the Boston Tea Party)Drake, Francis S. (Francis Samuel)
History
Tea Leaves: Being a Collection of Letters and Documents relating to; the shipment of Tea to the American Colonies in the year; 1773, by the East India Tea Company. (With an introduction,; notes, and biographical notices of the Boston Tea Party)
Drake, Francis S. (Francis Samuel)
Boston Tea Party, 1773; Tea tax (American colonies)
CAPTAIN PETER SLATER
Died in Worcester, Mass., October 13, 1831; aged seventy-two. He was
apprenticed to a rope-maker, in Boston. His master, apprehensive that
something would take place that evening relative to the tea, then in the
harbor, shut Peter up in his chamber. He made his escape from the
window; went to a blacksmith's shop, where he found a man disguised, who
told him to tie a handkerchief round his frock, to black his face with
charcoal, and to follow him. The party soon increased to twenty persons.
Slater went on board the brig, with five others; two of them brought the
tea upon deck, two broke open the chests, and threw them overboard,
while he, with one other, stood with poles to push them under water. Not
a word was exchanged between the parties from the time they left
Griffins' wharf till the cargo was emptied into the harbor, and they
returned to the wharf and dispersed. Slater served five years in the
Revolutionary army. A monument in Hope Cemetery, New Worcester, erected
by his daughter, Mrs. Howe, bears the names of Slater, and many of his
companions of the "tea party."
[Illustration: Signature, Samuel Sloper]
Was one of the party, of whom we have no further information.
THOMAS SPEAR
Lived on Orange Street, in 1789. He was one of those whom Peter
Mackintosh remembered to have seen run into his master's blacksmith's
shop, and blacken their faces with soot.
SAMUEL SPRAGUE,
The father of the poet, Charles Sprague, was born in Hingham,
Mass.,--the home of four generations of his ancestors,--December 22,
1753, and died in Boston, June 20, 1844. He was a mason by trade, and
was athletic and tall of stature. His share in the tea party he thus
related to his son: "That evening, while on my way to visit the young
woman I afterwards married, I met some lads hurrying along towards
Griffin's wharf, who told me there was something going on there. I
joined them, and on reaching the wharf found the 'Indians' busy with the
tea chests. Wishing to have my share of the fun, I looked about for the
means of disguising myself. Spying a low building, with a stove-pipe by
way of chimney, I climbed the roof and obtained a quantity of soot, with
which I blackened my face. Joining the party, I recognized among them
Mr. Etheridge, my master. We worked together, but neither of us ever
afterwards alluded to each other's share in the proceedings." Sprague
married Joanna Thayer, of Braintree, a woman of great decision of
character. They lived in a two-story wooden house, at No. 38 Orange
(now Washington) Street, directly opposite Pine Street.
[Illustration: Signature, Samuel Sprague]
COLONEL JOHN SPURR,
Born in Dorchester, Mass., in 1748, died in Providence, R.I., November
1, 1822; after December 16, 1773, he went to Providence; joined the army
in 1775; was commissioned a captain in a Rhode Island regiment, in 1776,
major in 1777, and served throughout the Revolutionary war.
JAMES STARR,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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