TEA LEAVES: - Yesterday Image

stamp of[xci] 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[xcii] 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.
Nathaniel Green.
*Benj. Simpson.
Joseph Eayres.
Joseph Lee.