Shoemaker and the Tea Party

(b. 1742; d. November 5, 1840) Source for two workingman 's accounts of events during the American Revolution.
Hewes 's apprenticeship coincided with the French and Indian War. When his first master 's business failed, he tried to enlist in the British army. But he was rejected as too short, even after he built up his shoes.
At age twenty-one Hewes opened a small shop on Griffin 's Wharf, and in 1768 he wed Sally Sumner, a teenage laundress. Their marriage lasted sixty years, but they never escaped poverty. A lone shoemaker could not compete with early manufacturing centers like Lynn, Massachusetts, whose artisans in 1767 produced 40,000 pairs of shoes. Hewes therefore occasionally worked on fishing boats off Newfoundland, and in 1770 was jailed for a £7 debt.
Hewes started to turn against the royal government after it sent troops into Boston in 1768. He learned to carry rum to placate sentries. Once, he complained to a captain about a sergeant 's not paying for shoes, then was horrified by how harshly the army punished the man: 300 lashes. Later, he saw a grenadier steal a bundle of clothing; he chose to confront this man privately.
On March 5, 1770, Hewes saw the captain and the grenadier again, part of a squad facing a violent crowd on King Street. The soldiers shot into the townspeople. A mariner fell, mortally wounded, into Hewes 's arms. The angry shoemaker testified twice to magistrates about what Bostonians considered a massacre.
Three years later, the town was caught up in a fervor over three shiploads of taxable tea. On the night of December 16, Hewes spotted a crowd of men in disguise heading toward Griffin 's Wharf, near his shop. He grabbed a blanket, rubbed his face with soot, and joined them in dumping the tea into the harbor.
Pre-Revolutionary newspapers mentioned Hewes only once, after a violent incident on January 25, 1774. He told a customs official, John Malcolm, to stop threatening a boy. Malcolm replied that Hewes "should not speak to a gentleman." Hewes noted how Malcolm had recently been tarred and feathered over his clothing in New Hampshire. Irked, Malcolm clubbed Hewes with his cane. While some people carried the unconscious shoemaker to a doctor, others pursued his attacker, telling gentlemen who tried to intervene that they no longer trusted royal justice. That evening, a mob stripped Malcolm, covered him with tar and feathers, and carted him around town, whipping him viciously. When the two injured men met again on the street weeks later, Hewes was pleased to hear the customs man speak more politely.
After the Revolutionary War began in April 1775, Hewes sent his wife and children to his Wrentham relatives, then smuggled himself out of the besieged town on a fishing boat. That winter, his deserted shop was torn down for firewood.
Hewes never again lived in Boston. During the war, he served in the militia and on two privateering ships, working for a share of whatever British cargoes his vessels might capture. But he refused to sail with a ship 's officer who insisted "he take off his hat to him," a sign of new republican pride. For decades after independence Hewes farmed in Wrentham. Although in his seventies during the War of 1812, he nonetheless tried to enlist in the U.S. Navy before moving in with sons in upstate New York.
Hewes would have remained obscure had he not been discovered in the 1830s by young writers eager for Revolutionary lore. His memories, once common but by then rare, became the core of two books that preserved both his name and a workingman 's perspective on the American transition from monarchy to republic.
See Also
Boston Tea Party: Politicizing Ordinary People; Bunker Hill Monument; Constitution: Creating a Republic; Madison, James; Memory and Early Histories of the Revolution; Sampson, Deborah.
Bibliography
Hewes, George R. T. [as told to James Hawkes]. A Retrospect of the Boston Tea-Party. New York: S. S. Bliss, 1834.
Hewes, George R. T., as told to "A Bostonian" [Benjamin Bussey Thatcher]. Traits of the Tea Party. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1835.
Young, Alfred F. The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American Revolution. Boston: Beacon Press, 1999.
The Effect of the American Revolution on a Common Man
It was the 4th of July, Independence Day, 1835. An aged small man, barely over five feet tall, was the center of attraction in the parade that marched through the streets of Boston. They hailed him as one of the last living veterans of the War of Independence who had returned to the city of his birth for the event. As he entered the packed Baptist Church where celebrations were to commence, it was reported that, “high and low did him homage and heads were almost involuntarily uncovered as he approached” and “when the orator had occasion to speak of the destruction of the tea in the Boston harbor, he alluded to the venerable patriot who arose and received the united and enthusiastic congratulations of the audience.” 1 The status change for George Robert Twelves Hewes was significant, for in this same community, as an orphaned boy, he had been considered just a poor shoe cobbler’s apprentice. The events of his involvement in the American Revolution changed his perspective about how he viewed himself in relationship to others in his society and it changed the way society regarded him as well.
The word deference means to submit to the will of another. George Hewes was born in Boston, Massachusetts in the year 1742. He was orphaned at age fourteen and was apprenticed to a shoemaker probably because that’s all that his uncle who kept him could afford to pay for. According to A. F. Young, shoemaking was not the most sought after trade which ranked 38 out of 44 trades listed on the tax assessments. 2 Deference was a part of George Hewes’ early life.
He knew what it meant to take your hat off in the presence of the gentry and to speak only when spoken to. So when the occasion came for him to deliver a mended shoe to John Hancock, a well- known wealthy landowner, he was shocked to be invited to his home for New Year’s Day. As was the custom on this day, a gentleman could defer to a poor person of his
George Robert Twelves Hewes was a Boston shoemaker who participated in the revolutionary chaos in the 1770’s. Despite his inconsequential build and outlooks, Hewes turned out to be a lively contributor in the proceedings that led to the revolt such as the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party. Later on he engaged in the American Revolutionary war being a militiaman and privateer.
George Robert Twelves Hewes was born in Boston in 1742. Hewes did not have an easy childhood. He was not privileged to receive a descent education and his employment was fishing, farming, and making shoes. Hewes personality was high strung and loyal which impelled him to partake in many conflicts in Boston when the Stamp Act was passed. One of the most well known conflicts was the Boston Massacre. In 1770, four thousand British soldiers were positioned in a small town. “Resentment and tension also grew over the presence of British troops, quartered in town to discourage demonstrations” (Hawkes). The general population collided with the soldiers, who struggled for employment and housing. A sequence of brutal acts created a lot of tensions. Hewes was in the midst of the crowd outside the British quarters and participated in the lethal scuffle. After the massacre, Hewes presented declaration for the prosecution of the British soldiers killed innocent people. His bravery and frankness came to the attention of well-known activists in the town. His knowledge was very beneficial to the Sons of Liberty, the loyalist group that put together demonstrations in opposition to taxation and tyranny. “The governor told the committee, that if the people would be quiet that night he would give them satisfaction” (Hawkes). Even the government knew what happened that night was very wrong. The governor felt guilty of what occurred in Boston and to innocent people and was later sent to prison.
On Decembe…
George Robert Twelves Hewes was born in the South End of Boston, the son of George Hewes, a poor tanner and chandler who had moved to Boston from his family home in Wrentham, Massachusetts. Hewes 's unusual third name evidently came from his maternal grandmother, whose maiden name was Twelves.[1]
At the age of fourteen Hewes was apprenticed to a shoemaker named Downing. Disliking both his master and his craft, Hewes tried to enlist in the British army but was rejected for being too short (he stood at only five feet, one inch tall). Upon turning twenty-one in 1763, Hewes opened his own shoemaking shop and began a long, poverty-stricken career. In January 1768 he married Sarah “Sally” Sumner, the daughter of a Baptist sexton. Before being caught up in the political unrest of 1770, Hewes was an average member of Boston’s lower class, never belonging to any church or association, and never participating in politics.
[edit]Political activity

In his biographies, written at the end of his life, Hewes recalled that his participation in the Patriot movement began on March 5, 1770, when he joined the mob of Bostonian apprentices and craftsmen present at what is now called the Boston Massacre. Hewes joined the crowd in support of the apprentice who was trying to collect on a debt from British Captain John Goldfinch. Hewes was unarmed during the riot that ensued, but nonetheless he suffered injury when British Private Kilroy struck him in the shoulder with his rifle. On his way home that night Hewes had a verbal confrontation with two British soldiers, which he related in an official deposition the next day.
On December 16, 1773, Hewes joined the band of Bostonians who protested the Tea Act by dumping tea into Boston Harbor, an event now called the Boston Tea Party. The protesters divided themselves into three boarding parties, each going aboard one of the three tea ships, Dartmouth, Eleanor and Beaver. Hewes was appointed "boatswain" of his party that boarded Dartmouth,

Bibliography: Hewes, George R. T. [as told to James Hawkes]. A Retrospect of the Boston Tea-Party. New York: S. S. Bliss, 1834. Hewes, George R. T., as told to "A Bostonian" [Benjamin Bussey Thatcher]. Traits of the Tea Party. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1835. Young, Alfred F. The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American Revolution. Boston: Beacon Press, 1999. The Effect of the American Revolution on a Common Man It was the 4th of July, Independence Day, 1835