Most Tea Party participants chose to remain anonymous. Decades later two books appeared based on interviews with George Robert Twelves Hewes, who was then in his nineties.
“In about three hours… we had thus broken and thrown overboard every tea chest to be found in the ship.”
- George Robert Twelves Hewes
”The Boston Tea Party
Hewes dressed in the imagined style of a Mohawk and “covered face and hands with coal dust in the shop of a blacksmith.” Because of his whistling talent he was made an “officer.” As “boatswain” his duty was to summon the men with a whistle. Hewes demanded keys to the hatches and candles for light from the ship’s captain. First “cutting and splitting the chests with our tomahawks, so as thoroughly to expose them to the effects of water,” they threw the tea overboard.
- Wikimedia Commons
In the Matter of John Malcolm
John Malcolm was an ardent “Tory” and customs informer who was famously hot tempered. Hewes confronted him when he thought Malcolm was about to strike a child. Malcolm struck Hewes instead, wounding him “deeply on the forehead, so that Mr. Hewes for some time lost his senses.” He was treated by Dr. Joseph Warren. In retaliation, a mob tarred and feathered John Malcolm. Hewes disapproved, preferring a legal warrant and trial for Malcolm.
At The Boston Massacre
Hewes was a poor shoe maker who witnessed the Boston Massacre in 1770. As the crowd gathered he was struck on the shoulder with a gun by Private Kilroy, who was later convicted of manslaughter. When the soldiers fired, one of the victims was standing next to Hewes and the shoemaker caught him as he fell. Disinterested in politics before this, Hewes was radicalized.
- The Society of the Cincinnati, Library Purchase, 1990.
- Library of Congress