YARMOUTH — The slate headstone of Captain Joseph Bassett in the Old Yarmouth Cemetery was decorated on Wednesday with a brass memorial plaque, recognizing the old sailor as one of the patriots who took part in the Boston Tea Party of 1773 .
The Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, the City of Yarmouth and Revolution 250, a consortium of organizations planning a 250th commemoration of the iconic event, joined the effort. Fifty people gathered around the Bassett family grounds with its 12 slate headstones.
Evan O’Brien, creative director of Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum, said the Tea Party was an event that came to define a nation.
“It eventually led to the American Revolution,” he said.
O’Brien gave a little history of the days leading up to the Tea Party, how the colonists sought to send the three ships carrying tea back to England. They did not want to pay customs duties and taxes on the tea, as the law required at the time. But their appeals to the royal governor to return the tea were refused.
Shipping laws at the time gave ships 20 days to clear customs, unload cargo and pay tariffs and taxes, O’Brien said. The settlers held 19 town meetings during those 20 days. As the deadline approached, it became clear that they could never get the ships back to England in time. So a hundred men, their faces covered in soot and wearing feathers in their caps, boarded the ships and threw the crates of tea overboard.
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Those involved had sworn to secrecy because it was an act of treason, O’Brien said. Only one man who said he had been there was arrested, O’Brien added.
The tea was worth around £10,000 at the time, a sum that would translate to $1.3 million to $1.8 million today, O’Brien said. As a result, England blocked Boston Harbor to punish the city until the bill was paid. It never was.
Jonathan Lane, coordinator of Revolution 250, said the real revolution was in people’s hearts and minds. Long before the first drops of blood were shed in the battles of Lexington and Concord, people were supporting the cause of independence, he said.
By the time the Continental Congress formally declared independence from Britain in July 1776, towns in Massachusetts had been discussing the issue at town meetings. Every town in the Commonwealth was asked to publish an article on its municipal mandates early in 1776 to debate the issue.
From Yarmouth to Worcester, residents were asked if they would support independence with their life, liberty and property, Lane said. Virtually every city supported the article, he added.
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The history of the country’s struggle for independence is complicated, and Revolution 250 strives to tell the stories of underrepresented people, Lane said.
“It’s important to understand that American independence was not entirely won by people like John Adams and Benjamin Franklin,” Lane said. “There were African Americans – free and enslaved – who supported independence, Native Americans, women and children. These people were ordinary citizens.
And the principles behind the protest are timeless, as important today as they were 250 years ago, Lane said.
Actor Ryan Stack, wearing a three-cornered hat, woolen coat, button-up waistcoat, tie and breeches, portrayed Captain Bassett. Bassett lived in Yarmouth and was a captain by trade. He had sailed into Boston Harbor as the Tea Party approached and was inspired to join the protest.
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The memorial plaque design is inspired by Nathaniel Currier’s lithograph “The Destruction of Tea in Boston Harbor” created in 1846, according to the museum. It depicts shirtless men with feathers in their hair throwing tea chests overboard from a ship. The settlers on earth encourage them.
Contact Denise Coffey at dcoffey@capecodonline.com. Follow her on Twitter: @DeniseCoffeyCCT.
