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Lot 27
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Boston Tea Party Newspaper 1773, Weeks Before the Event 5 Boston Merchants Advertise Tea
Boston Tea Party Newspaper 1773, Weeks Before the Event 5 Boston Merchants Advertise Tea
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Boston Tea Party


Boston Tea Party Newspaper 1773, Weeks Before the Event 5 Boston Merchants Advertise Tea

 

[BOSTON TEA PARTY]. The Massachusetts Gazette: and the Boston Weekly News-Letter, September 2, 1773. Boston: Richard Draper. 4 pp., 9.25" x 14.75"

 

Excerpts

Josiah Waters & Son could provide “very fine Hyson and Souchong TEA” at their shop on Ann Street. (p3/c2) Josiah Waters (1721-1784) was the captain of a Boston company at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. His son Josiah Waters (1748-1805) also became a Boston merchant and helped erect fortifications near Cambridge after the Battle of Bunker Hill.

 

Daniel Bell advertised a variety of goods available at his newly opened store on the Town-Dock, including “Excellent Bohea TEA, superior not to be found.” (p4/c1) Daniel Bell (1752-1791) was a Boston merchant.

 

Samuel Minott offered “Choice Bohea, Hyson, and Souchong TEA,” as well as his house and shop “to lett.” (p4/c1) Samuel Minott (1732-1803) was a leading Boston silversmith for at least forty years. He was arrested as a Tory early in 1776.

 

Mrs. Sheaffe, at her shop on the north corner of Queen Street, offered groceries of all kinds, by wholesale and retail, including “Choice Hyson, Souchong and Bohea Teas.” (p4/c1) Mrs. Susanna Child Sheaffe (d. 1811) was the widow of the Deputy Collector of Customs who died in 1771, and she and her children were loyalists.

 

Ward Nicholas Boylston planned to leave soon for Europe and offered for sale many items of cloth and clothing, as well as “Very best Hyson Tea” (p4/c2) Born Ward Hallowell, Boylston (1747-1828) changed his surname at the request of his uncle, who promised to leave him large estates in his will. As this advertisement indicates, Boylston left Boston in 1773 for an extended trip through Europe and Asia. In 1775, he arrived in London and remained there as a merchant until 1800, when he returned to Boston. He later made several large bequests to Harvard University.

 

Historical Background

The Tea Act, passed by Parliament on May 10, 1773, allowed the British East India Company to sell tea from China in American colonies without paying taxes apart from those imposed by the Townshend Acts.  In September and October, seven ships loaded with more than 2,000 chests of East India Company tea sailed for the colonies. Four were bound for Boston, and the other three for New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston, where consignees would be able to sell the tea for less than smugglers were charging for Dutch tea.

 

Americans learned the details of the Tea Act before the ships arrived, and pressured consignees to resign. The tactic was effective, and consignees in New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston resigned before receiving the tea. Those ships returned to England with the tea. In Boston, however, Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson refused to allow the tea to be returned to England and convinced the consignees, two of whom were his sons, not to back down. On December 16, a group of from thirty to 130 men, some dressed in Mohawk warrior disguises, boarded the Dartmouth, the Eleanor, and the Beaver and dumped all 342 chests of tea into Boston harbor.

 

The protest was not a dispute over high taxes, as the Tea Act of 1773 actually reduced the price of tea to consumers. The issue was Parliament’s authority to tax the colonies without colonists’ having any representation in Parliament. The Act also left in place the hated Townshend duties implemented to raise revenue to pay the salaries of some colonial governors and judges. Finally, colonists resented the monopoly the British East India Company enjoyed, giving them a competitive advantage over other colonial tea importers.

 

Bohea, sometimes called Bohea Souchong or Lapsang Bohea, was the largest tea import in colonial times. It was so popular that “bohea” (pronounced “boo-hee”) became slang for “tea.” Hyson Green tea was made from young leaves thinly rolled into furls and was named for English tea merchant Phillip Hyson. It was highly prized by colonial Americans, and the tax on Hyson was higher than for other teas. During the Boston Tea Party, 70 chests of Hyson were destroyed.  Lapsang Souchong was a strong black tea that the British East India Company commonly imported into colonial America. Colonists destroyed 35 chests of Souchong in the Boston Tea Party.

 

Additional content includes a letter to the editor from a Baptist regarding the public support of Christian worship (p1/c1-2); news from London (p2/c1-2); news from New York, Newport, Halifax, Baltimore, and Philadelphia (p2/c3-p3/c1); the unanimous election of John Hancock as treasurer of Harvard College (p3/c2); and a notice of a $2 reward for the return of a runaway servant (p3/c3); along with other notices and advertisements.

 

The Boston News-Letter / Massachusetts Gazette: and the Boston Weekly News-Letter (1704-1776) was established in Boston as a weekly newspaper, the first continuously published newspaper in British North America. Heavily subsidized by the British government, all copies were approved by the governor. The first editor was John Campbell, the postmaster of Boston, and the first printer was Bartholomew Green, who became the editor in 1722. Early content was mostly news from London. After his death in 1732, Green’s son-in-law John Draper took over and enlarged the paper to four pages with news from throughout the colonies. When Draper died in 1762, his son Richard Draper became editor. He died in 1774, and his widow Margaret Green Draper published it for the next two years. Richard Draper was a committed loyalist, so when editor Robert Boyle showed too much sympathy for the American Revolution, Margaret Draper replaced him with John Howe. When the British evacuated Boston, Draper and Howe left with them, bringing the publication to an end.

 



 

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