On this day 250 years ago, Charles Clinton Beatty wrote to his brother-in-law and fellow student Rev. Enoch Green about the destruction of tea earlier in the month at the College of New Jersey in Princeton: “to show our patriotism, we gathered all the Steward’s winter store of Tea, and having made a fire on the campus, we there burnt near a dozen pounds, tolled the bell, and made many spirited resolves.” They also made an effigy of Massachusetts Governor Hutchinson, which “shared the same fate as the Tea, having a Tea canister tied about his neck,” and burned it in front of Nassau Hall.  Both Beatty and Green went on to serve as officers in the Continental Army with Green as a Chaplain and Beatty dying of an accidental gunshot as a Lieutenant.

[I included a previous report on the burning of the tea at Princeton. Beatty’s letter on this date is the primary source for that event.]