Editorial

Whose Tea Party?

An Editorial

According to several newspaper reports, the opening salvo in the battery of events which Massachusetts plans as historic observances to mark the nation's bicentennial celebration will be a celebration in December to commemorate the Boston Tea Party.

The significance of this history-making event cannot be too strongly emphasized. The determined stand taken by the Boston patriots, the weeks of tension that caught Boston and Massachusetts during the period when the tea ships arrived, and the climax erupting with the dumping of the tea in Boston harbor are all an exciting part of our history. Ceremonies dramatizing the occasion are important as reminders that preliminary events taking place over a year before Lexington and Concord were important inspirational factors in the story of the American Revolution.

But one vital part of the Boston Tea Party should not be forgotten by the promoters. If there had been no tea there would have been no "party"! Two of the vessels bringing the tea into Boston had an intimate connection with Nantucket — the Beaver and the Dartmouth. The third ship, the Eleanor, was a Boston craft, owned by John Rowe, a well-known merchant of that town.

It was early summer, 1773, when the Beaver, built in the North River of Massachusetts for William Rotch, Sr., and the Dartmouth, built in Bedford for Francis Rotch, his younger brother, took aboard at Nantucket cargoes of whale oil which they delivered to the English consignees at London. Captain Hezekiah Coffin, of Nantucket, was in command of the Beaver, and Captain James Hall, of Rhode Island, was the master of the Dartmouth. Pursuant to orders from their respective owners, the two shipmasters accepted charters from the British East India Company to bring cargoes of tea to Boston. There were four vessels in the Boston fleet, the fourth being the ship William. Other tea-bearing fleets were dispatched to New York and Charleston.

Of the Boston-bound fleet the William was wrecked on the back side of Cape Cod, and some of her cargo subsequently did reach the town by wagon. The other three arrived safely in Boston, but the fiery attitude of the patriots kept the custom's officials from entering the tea. When Governor Hutchinson fled to his country residence in Milton he left the problem in a legal tangle. What happened is history.

But one man, acting as agent for the Dartmouth and Beaver, played a leading role in the series of events — Francis Rotch, of