By Peter F. Stevens

On January 4, 1774, the townsmen of Dorchester made a statement. They formally opposed Great Britain's Tea Act, or Tea Tax, which assessed a three-pence-per-pound fee upon the popular imported beverage. Dorchester's view that the Tea Tax comprised a Parliamentary attack "upon the liberties of America which every American was in duty bound to oppose", and was "the precedent for every imposition the Parliament of Great Britain shall think proper to saddle us with."

The protest came on the proverbial heels of as far bolder one in which a number of Dorchester men had joined: the Boston Tea Party, on December 16, 1773, when many of the local Sons of Liberty, some "disguised" as Indians, had stormed aboard three British merchant ships - the Beaver, the Dartmouth, and the Eleanor - in Boston Harbor and had dumped some 340 chests of tea into the ocean.

By the time that the citizens of Dorchester codified their opposition to the tax in January 1774, the outbreak of full-scale rebellion against their mother country of Great Britain looming ever closer, Dorchester had already played a pronounced role in the unfolding revolt.

Historian William Dana Orcutt writes proudly of his hometown: "Dorchester was not behind Boston in the part she took in the struggle of the Revolution, which began with the passage of the Stamp Act [1765], which dictated that revenues to help quarter British troops in the Colonies would be raised by charges for stamps affixed upon local newspapers, pamphlets, and other printed material. Virulent protest from Dorchester and Boston to New York and Philadelphia erupted in response to the tax.

In the forefront of Dorchester's struggle against the measure was Colonel John Robinson, who was appointed by the Town Meeting "to use the utmost of his endeavours, with the great and general court [of Massachusetts] to obtain the repeal of the late parliamentary act (always asserting our rights as free-born Englishmen) and his best skill in preventing the use of stamped paper in this government."

Robinson's labors, along with the collective efforts of other local helped unravel the Tea Act. Church bells in Dorchester pealed the welcome news that the reviled measure had been repealed by Parliament in the spring of 1766. But trouble still simmered. The repeal of the tea duty notwithstanding, many of Dorchester's leading men seethed with unrest over the ensuing eight years, first advocating less dependence upon imported British goods, then embracing the more militant stance of "The Union and Association of the Sons of Liberty," which was headed by such men as Patriot firebrand Sam Adams.

For some families in the town, protesting taxes was one thing, but the notion of revolt against or separation from Britain was virtually unthinkable. As Orcutt notes, a great many locals viewed the idea of revolution with "utter abhorrence" and decried "all routs, riots, tumbles, and unlawful assemblies."

On November 3, 1769, a Dorchester man found himself thrust right into the middle of the growing crisis. Arodi Thayer, the local Marshal of the Court of Admiralty, which oversaw maritime matters in the colony, was ordered to arrest wealthy entrepreneur John Hancock, whose sloop Liberty had allegedly smuggled a cargo of wine to the region's tables. Until the arrival of a contingent of Redcoat soldiers, "the popularity of the man [Hancock] made it expedient" for Thayer "to postpone the arrest."

Fortunately for Thayer, most of his neighbors grasped the uncomfortable position he had faced: "Although Mr. Thayer was then on the unpopular side of the great question of the day," a local historian writes, "he bore the character of a sincere Christian and downright honest man. All of the latter part of his life he was a resident of Dorchester, and is well-remembered by many of its citizens on account of his quaint language, his cocked hat, long stockings, and knee and shoe buckles, which created great astonishment among the young people of that day. He died May 7th, 1831, aged 88 years and 2 months. His commission and badge of office (a silver oar) [were] deposited with the Dorchester Antiquarian and Historical Society."

In addition to escalating Arodi Thayer's discomfiture among his neighbors, John Hancock proved a key figure in one of the most memorable "barbecues" in the annals of Dorchester. The occasion was a patriotic celebration held by the Sons of Liberty on August 14, 1769. To "great applause," a large band of patriots gathered at the Liberty Tree in Boston, "where they drank fourteen toasts." Then, the raised mugs having set the celebratory tone for the day, the men headed for Robinson's Tavern, in Dorchester, where the real festivities began.

At about 2 p.m., 300 to 350 Sons of Liberty from all over the region sat at tables arranged beneath a tent in the field adjoining Robinson's watering hole, the aroma of "three large pigs barbacued [sic.]", along with "other

provision in abundance, wafting from table to table. John Adams, John Hancock, Robinson, and the other diners enjoyed "a sumptuous repast.

According to Adams's account, "toast followed toast, each being more patriotic than the preceding; but the climax was reached when one of the Sons of Liberty proposed 'strong halters, firm blocks and sharp axes to all such as deserve either'" - namely, British and Tory officials. Orcutt points out that the toast's "English is a trifle doubtful, but the meaning was extremely clear."

Also clear was the meaning that the local patriots attached to the celebration. All "gentleman of distinction from other colonies," Adams recounted, "known to be in Town, had cards of invitation sent them." One of the day's highlights was the men's singing of the "Liberty Song," ringing

defiantly across the Neck. "When the feasting was over [at 5 p.m.] a

procession was formed, headed by John Hancock in his chariot. The affair was carried through with perfect decorum…in spite of the huge number of toasts which were drank."

Adams claimed: "To the honor of the Sons [of Liberty] I did not see one person intoxicated or near it." With a reported forty-five toasts - in addition to the fourteen poured down throats before the party even hit Robinson's Tavern, Adams's contention might strike some as either wishful thinking or testimony to the Sons' collective tolerance for wine, ale, or harder spirits.

One drink that many Dorchester residents had learned to do without was tea. In 1770, according to The History of Dorchester (1853) "the town complimented the merchants of Boston, who had agreed not to import certain articles while the duty remained on them….also not to drink tea, except in case of sickness, until the duty was removed."

In early January 1773, the Town Meeting passed nine resolutions advocating an even more "decided and patriotic stand in relation to colonial affairs." A local historian writes that Dorchester's selectmen contended that "the attempts by the British Parliament to impose upon the inhabitants of the colonies laws without their consent was a lawless usurpation; that the wresting [by Redcoats] from the control of the Province its principal fortress (the Castle) was a great grievance; that a late act of Parliament to hurry persons from their country for trial, 'appears to come little short of any court of inquisition'; and other resolves of a similar character."

The Town Meeting, stressing the importance of those resolutions, also

instructed its representatives to the local Committee of Correspondence, which presented grievances to British officials, "to join in any motion or motions in a constitutional way, to obtain not only redress of the aforementioned grievances, but of all others, and that they in no wise consent to give up any of our rights, whether from nature or compact."

In The History of Dorchester, the nineteenth-century author proudly relates the patriotic fervor sweeping up many in the Colonial town in the months leading to Lexington and Concord in April 1775: "They [Dorchester's citizens] also gave their sincere and hearty thanks to the people of Boston for their constant watch of the enemies of the country. These resolves [from the January 1773 Town Meeting] are drawn up with great ability, and the patriotic sentiments therein contained might well put to blush many of their descendants. The Castle was a fortress in which this town had always felt especial interest. It was nearer to its borders than to any other place; the town had assisted largely in its erection, and in a great measure nursed and provided for it in its infancy, and it was long under the command of one of its favorite sons. The town at this same meeting chose a Committee of Correspondence - viz., Capt. Lemuel Robinson, Capt. John Homans and Samuel How. This and similar committees of other towns performed a very important part in the movements of the times." Those "movements" pointed the way to rebellion against the Crown.

Although not everyone in Dorchester wanted independence from Britain, many of the town's residents grew more fervent in the cause of the Sons of Liberty. In 1774, a number of Dorchester carpenters took work in Boston to build barracks for the expanding numbers of British troops, a development that dismayed the Town Meeting. Dorchester, "by a vote, desired the [the carpenters] to desist, or incur its displeasure." Most of the tradesmen found it expedient to "agree."

Many in Dorchester similarly found it expedient to agree with the Town Meeting's January 1774 protests against the Tea Tax. "A committee was chosen to post up the names of those who sold or made use of East India tea," notes The History of Dorchester.

Sacrificing the drink was no easy task for locals, as "at this time…this pleasant but expensive weed…had become so indispensable that supper without it was thought but half a meal, because it made its partakers feel so cheerful and their tongues 'so merrily run."

Still, the author relates, "some of it [tea] found its way into this town [Dorchester] and caused no little trouble." Such "trouble" was described in the Essex Gazette in January 1774: "Whereas it was reported that one Withington, of Dorchester, had taken up and partly disposed of a chest of the East India Company's tea, a number of the Cape or Narraganset Indians [actually Sons of Liberty in disguise] went to the house of Capt. Ebenezer Withington, and his brother Philip Withington (both living

on the lower road from Boston to Milton), last Friday evening, and with their consent thoroughly searched their houses, without offering the least offence to any one. But finding no tea, they proceeded to the house of old Ebenezer Withington, at a place called Sodom, below Dorchester Meeting-house, where they found part of a half chest which had floated, and was cast upon Dorchester point. This they seized and brought to Boston Common, where they committed it to the flames."

The tea discovered in old Ebenezer Withington's home had been one of the chests tossed overboard during the Boston Tea Party a few weeks earlier.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Dorchester - the home of America's first Town Meeting - played such a prominent part in protests of the Tea Tax, the Stamp Act, and other forms of "taxation without representation." In the opening stage of the Revolution, which would erupt less than a year and a half after the town's portentous January 1774 stand against the duty on tea, Dorchester would embrace an even more critical role.

(Journalist Peter F. Stevens is the author of The Rogue's March: John Riley and the St. Patrick's Battalion, 1846-48, Brassey's, and Notorious and Notable New Englanders, Down East Books.)