There’s nothing like making history come alive than visiting and participating in reenactments of a historic event that defined our nation. One of the major events Boston is associated with was the infamous Boston Tea Party. Located just off the Congress Street Bridge in historic Boston, is a floating museum unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before. The little known fact is that the current museum floating in the Fort Point Channel is roughly only a few hundred yards from where the Tea Party took place on December 16,1773.
After entering a town hall style room we are each given the identity of an early American revolutionist and a feather to use as a symbol to others fighting the English that we are part of the cause. I was Thomas Moore – the operator of the Boston Wharf.
We then participated in the re-enactment of the planning of the Boston Tea Party. Samuel Adams led our meeting and explained that they offered Governor Hutchinson an opportunity to send the three tea ships back to England with their cargo but he refused and said they must be offloaded before returning back to England. The debate got pretty intense!
The next part of our tour was visiting one of the two docked authentically restored tea ships. There were three ships that sailed from London and docked at the harbor during the tea party event. The Dartmouth, Beaver and Eleanor were actually ships owned by Americans but carried British East India Company tea that came from China. The Beaver and Eleanor were the only ones restored during our visit. We boarded Eleanor and it was a small and very cramped ship where the crew shared the hold with its cargo. Before disembarking the historic vessel we each took the opportunity to throw a crate of tea into the harbor.
Next we entered the portrait gallery where one of only two surviving crates from the Boston Tea Party is on display. The Robinson Half Chest as it is known washed up in the salt marshes where it was saved by a young man who hid it away to protect against any loyalist reprisals before it got passed along many generations before being given to the museum for display. Similar to the portrait hall of Hogwarts the portraits of John Hancock and King George III came to life as the corresponded about the affairs of the colonies.
We ended the tour to a multi-sensory “Let It Begin Here” presentation recalling the ride of Paul Revere, the Battle of Lexington and Concord and thus the start of the revolution!