On this day 250 years ago,  the East India Trading Company sent a detailed report of the Boston Tea Party to Lord Dartmouth, the British Secretary of State.

Source: https://historyofmassachusetts.org/british-react-boston-tea-party/

On this day 250 years ago, the General Assembly of the Colony of New York formed a Committee of Correspondence, joining ten other colonies in this initial step on the road to self-governance independent of Britain.

Source: https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/learn/deep-dives/committees-of-correspondence/

On this day 250 years ago, the ship Hayley arrived in England carrying news of the Boston Tea Party.

Source: https://historyofmassachusetts.org/

On this day 250 years ago townspeople of Marblehead, Massachusetts, began a series of riots that eventually resulted in the destruction of a private hospital that had been established by leading merchants of the town to control smallpox outbreaks. The rioters were outraged that the proprietors of the hospital were not abiding by restrictions that had been adopted by a town meeting of Marblehead in order to limit the spread of smallpox. Ironically, the rioters and the principal proprietors of the hospital (Elbridge Gerry, John Glover, and Azor Orne) were all ardent Patriots. Elbridge Gerry served in public office throughout the Revolution and the early Republic, dying in office as Vice President under President Madison. Azor Orne was a member of the Massachusetts legislature. John Glover was one of the most celebrated generals of the Revolution who led the Marblehead Regiment that rowed the Continental Army across the East River to escape the British after the Battle of Brooklyn in 1776 and then across the Delaware to surprise the Hessians at the Battle of Trenton a few months later. Many of the rioters served in the Marblehead Regiment under Glover’s command.

Source: https://history.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/05/Blake-Eva_SNR-Thesis_web.pdf

On this day 250 years ago, the Town of Hampton, New Hampshire adopted Tea Act Resolves that condemned the tea tax as “unreasonable and unconstitutional” and stated that “it must be evident to every one that is not lost to virtue nor devoid of common sense that [the taxes] will be totally destructive to our natural and constitutional rights and liberties, and have a direct tendency to reduce the Americans to a state of actual slavery.”

Source: http://www.seacoastnh.com/the-original-new-hampshire-tea-party/

During this month 250 years ago, students at Princeton (then known as the  College of New Jersey) hosted another tea party. Student Charles Clinton Beatty wrote that “to show our patriotism, we gathered all the Steward’s winter store of Team, 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.  Charles Clinton Beatty went on to become a Lieutenant in the Continental Army, with three of his other brothers also serving as officers, but Beatty died of an accidental gunshot during his service in the Revolution.

Sources: https://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/20657; https://www.jstor.org/stable/20086417?seq=4

On this day 250 years ago, handbills were posted in Boston threatening consignees of East India Company tea who had fled to the protection of the British Army and Navy on Castle Island in Boston Harbor with “such a reception as such vile ingrates deserve.” The handbills were signed by the “Chairman of the Committee for Tarring and Feathering.”

Source: Philbrick, Nathaniel, Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution (2013) at 10.

On this day 250 years ago, the Town of Dover, New Hampshire adopted a Resolution praising “the general Exertions, and noble Struggles” of Patriots blocking imports of British East India Company tea. 

Source: Norton, Mary Beth, 1774 the Long Year of Revolution at p. 365 n. 54

                     

On this day 250 years ago the Massachusetts Spy published an article about how Philadelphia turned away the Polly and lauded “the united spirit” of Patriots in Philadelphia, Boston, Charleston and New York.

Source: https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83021194/1774-01-13/ed-1/

On this day 250 years ago Patriots erected a flagpole and unfurled a Liberty Flag at the corner of what is now Church and Union Streets in Schenectady, New York. In 1776 and 1777, the flag was also reportedly carried during the Revolutionary War by the 3rd New York Regiment.

Source: https://www.newyorkalmanack.com/2023/12/schenectady-liberty-pole-flag/