![Boston Tea Party Currier colored](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Boston_Tea_Party_Currier_colored.jpg)
The Chestertown Tea Party was a protest against British
excise
file:Lincoln Beer Stamp 1871.JPG, upright=1.2, 1871 U.S. Revenue stamp for 1/6 barrel of beer. Brewers would receive the stamp sheets, cut them into individual stamps, cancel them, and paste them over the Bunghole, bung of the beer barrel so when ...
duties which, according to local legend, took place in May 1774 in
Chestertown, Maryland
Chestertown is a town in Kent County, Maryland, United States. The population was 5,252 as of the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Kent County.
History
Founded in 1706, Chestertown rose in stature when it was named one of the English col ...
as a response to the British
Tea Act
The Tea Act 1773 (13 Geo 3 c 44) was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. The principal objective was to reduce the massive amount of tea held by the financially troubled British East India Company in its London warehouses and to help th ...
. Chestertown tradition holds that, following the example of the more famous
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was an American political and mercantile protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1773. The target was the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed the British East India Company to sell t ...
, colonial patriots boarded the
brigantine ''Geddes'' in broad daylight and threw its cargo of tea into the
Chester River
The Chester River is a major tributary of the Chesapeake Bay on the Delmarva Peninsula. It is about long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 and its watersh ...
. The event is celebrated each
Memorial Day
Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day) is a federal holiday in the United States for mourning the U.S. military personnel who have fought and died while serving in the United States armed forces. It is observed on the last Monda ...
weekend with a festival and historic reenactment called the Chestertown Tea Party Festival.
Background
Relations with England
In 1767 in an effort to raise money for England by taxing the
thirteen colonies
The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, the Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a group of British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Founded in the 17th and 18th cent ...
, Parliament passed the
Townshend Acts
The Townshend Acts () or Townshend Duties, were a series of British acts of Parliament passed during 1767 and 1768 introducing a series of taxes and regulations to fund administration of the British colonies in America. They are named after the ...
, as part of a series of other acts, including the Sugar Act, Stamp Act, and Coercive Acts. The Townshend Acts placed taxes on several important items in the Colonial economy including paper, paint, lead, glass and tea. Reaction to the Townshend Acts in the thirteen colonies was so negative that on March 5, 1770, Parliament decided to repeal most of the duties, however, they decided that the tax on tea would remain.
As a result, many colonists refused to buy (boycotted) tea that came to America from England. Instead they smuggled in tea from other countries or made their own tea from local spices. Soon merchants in England began to lose money, especially the
East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...
. In order to keep this company from going bankrupt, Parliament passed the
Tea Act
The Tea Act 1773 (13 Geo 3 c 44) was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. The principal objective was to reduce the massive amount of tea held by the financially troubled British East India Company in its London warehouses and to help th ...
of 1773. For reasons of economics and
social liberty, the colonists were outraged and the seeds of dissent began to grow in the
New World
The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...
.
Beginnings in Boston
On December 16, 1773, a group of angry rebels calling themselves the "
Sons of Liberty
The Sons of Liberty was a loosely organized, clandestine, sometimes violent, political organization active in the Thirteen American Colonies founded to advance the rights of the colonists and to fight taxation by the British government. It pl ...
" protested the Tea Act and disguised as
Mohawk natives boarded three ships in
Boston Harbor
Boston Harbor is a natural harbor and estuary of Massachusetts Bay, and is located adjacent to the city of Boston, Massachusetts. It is home to the Port of Boston, a major shipping facility in the northeastern United States.
History
...
loaded with tea and proceeded to dump 92,000 pounds of tea into the ocean.
King George III
George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...
reacted to the "tea party" by ordering the closing of the port of Boston.
While Boston's was by far the most famous tea party that occurred in the colonies, it was only the first of many protests against the Tea Act that took place along the
Atlantic Coast.
Events in Chestertown
When news of the closing of the port of Boston reached the
Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula (including the parts: the Eastern Shore of Maryland / ...
port of Chester Town, (now
Chestertown) on the
Eastern Shore of Maryland
The Eastern Shore of Maryland is a part of the U.S. state of Maryland that lies mostly on the east side of the Chesapeake Bay. Nine counties are normally included in the region. The Eastern Shore is part of the larger Delmarva Peninsula tha ...
in the spring of 1774, town leaders called a meeting to discuss what actions should be taken. The local chapter of the Sons of Liberty boldly put forth a list of grievances, which became known as the "Chestertown Resolves". These stated that it was unlawful to buy, sell, or drink tea shipped from England.
The "Resolves" are a matter of historic record, reported in the ''
Maryland Gazette
''The Gazette'', founded in 1727 as ''The Maryland Gazette'', is one of the oldest newspapers in America. Its modern-day descendant, ''The Capital,'' was acquired by The Baltimore Sun Media Group in 2014. Previously, it was owned by the Capita ...
'', but for the tossing of tea, there is no contemporary evidence; the earliest record dates to the end of 19th century. The Chestertown Tea Party nonetheless remains a major part of local tradition and a source of civic identity.
Shortly after the Resolves were printed, word came to the citizens that a ship in the local harbor, the brigantine ''Geddes'', had come to port with a shipment of tea. According to tradition, on May 23, 1774, a small group of men (unlike their brethren in
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...
, in broad daylight and without
Indian
Indian or Indians may refer to:
Peoples South Asia
* Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor
** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country
* South Asia ...
disguise) forcibly boarded the ship and threw its cargo into the Chester River.
Historic impact
The events in Chester Town as well as others in port cities like
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
Annapolis and
Charleston, SC, marked a turning point in relations between England and the thirteen colonies.
After these "tea parties", it was clear that the colonists were deeply committed to opposing taxes they viewed as unfair. The destruction of British tea was a defiant act against Parliament and King George and viewed by
the Crown
The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has different ...
as
treason
Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...
. The once distinct and autonomous colonies became united under the resolution that they would not accept "
taxation without representation
"No taxation without representation" is a political slogan that originated in the American Revolution, and which expressed one of the primary grievances of the American colonists for Great Britain. In short, many colonists believed that as they ...
" in any form, and that they were willing to act forcefully to protect that right.
Historic record and authenticity
The authenticity of the Chestertown Tea Party has been questioned by historians, who have been able to find no record prior to the very end of the nineteenth century. The first mention of a "tea party" dates from 1899, in a booklet about Chestertown by Fred G. Usilton called ''History of Chestertown: Gem City on the Chester''. Usilton was involved with the local newspaper, which was edited by his father.
Usilton gives no source for his story. Despite efforts to find primary sources (letters, diaries, news accounts) this remains the earliest account. It was picked up in a state of Maryland publication in 1903. Usilton's tale – which could have been nothing more than patriotic embroidery for the Chestertown Resolves – appears to have gained currency in 1906, Chestertown's 200th anniversary. In 1915, Usilton published a county history which included the tale.
In the 1950s, newspaper editor Bill Usilton (Fred's son) revived the story for the town's 250th anniversary. Later, Bill Usilton expanded on the 1915 history book and the Tea Party tale was included.
Through all those years, however, no additional documentation was presented.
Contemporary news accounts of protests and destruction in 1774 are documented in New York; Yorktown, Va., and Annapolis. Chestertown, at the time, was a major commercial center, but Colonial newspapers are silent about the legendary tea-dumping.
A strand remains. The "Brigantine ''Geddes''" bears the name of a respected local merchant and collector of customs, William Geddes. She was built in 1773, in Chestertown. Surviving port records show the ship was in the Chesapeake around the time of the legendary tea party, having returned from a voyage to Europe that began the previous fall. The owner is listed as James Nicholson and the captain, John Harrison.
''Geddes'' was in the vicinity between about May 7 and May 24, when she cleared customs outbound for Madeira. So part of the legend can be documented. There was a brig ''Geddes'' and it was in the area in May 1774. It remains uncertain whether tea was aboard.
[Goodheart, Adam, op. cit.]
Tea Party Festival
In the spring of 1968 the citizens of Chestertown staged the first festival to commemorate the actions of their forefathers. The event that year was very small by current standards, but included a parade and historic staging of the events of the fateful day.
With a few years off, the Tea Party Festival has continued every Memorial Day Weekend in earnest since the
Bicentennial __NOTOC__
A bicentennial or bicentenary is the two-hundredth anniversary of a part, or the celebrations thereof. It may refer to:
Europe
*French Revolution bicentennial, commemorating the 200th anniversary of 14 July 1789 uprising, celebrated ...
year of 1976. The current incarnation is showcased by a large colonial parade down High Street, featuring numerous
fife and drum
A Fife and drum corps is a musical ensemble consisting of fifes and drums. In the United States of America, fife and drum corps specializing in colonial period impressions using fifes, rope tension snare drums, and (sometimes) rope tension bas ...
bands as well as marching Colonial and British re-enactors.
Local civic clubs offer indigenous cuisine (favorites include cold beer, hot corn,
crab cakes and
funnel cake
Funnel cake (Pennsylvania German: ''Drechderkuche'') is a regional sweet food popular in North America, found mainly at carnivals and amusement parks. It is made by deep-frying batter.
History
The concept of the funnel cake dates back to the ea ...
s). Craftsmen from around the country ply their wares while musicians,
puppeteers and dancers entertain the crowds of as many as 15,000 until the first day culminates with the throng gathering on the bank of the Chester River to cheer for the historic reenactment of the Storming of the ''Geddes''. Colonial re-enactors use the
schooner ''Sultana'' (a 1768 replica) and they are thrown overboard with the tea.
Other events at the annual event include a
cocktail party, homegrown music, historic home tours, the tossing of a major town figure into the river, 10-mile and
5K runs 5K or 5-K may refer to:
* 5K resolution, a display resolution with horizontal resolution on the order of 5,000 pixels
* Gnome-Rhône 5K, a radial aircraft engine
* 5000 metres, a long-distance running event in track and field
* 5K run, a long-dist ...
, and a
raft
A raft is any flat structure for support or transportation over water. It is usually of basic design, characterized by the absence of a hull. Rafts are usually kept afloat by using any combination of buoyant materials such as wood, sealed barrels ...
race.
References
External links
Chestertown Tea Party FestivalRetrieved November 2010
Retrieved November 2010
Schooner Sultana ProjectRetrieved November 2010
{{American Revolution origins, state=expanded
Chestertown, Maryland
Maryland in the American Revolution
Kent County, Maryland
1774 in the Thirteen Colonies
1774 in Maryland