More than two months away from the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, organizers say they have already invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into marking the grand occasion, a total they anticipate to continue growing.
At least 10,000 people from all over the country and abroad are expected to flock to the city on Dec. 16 for the full-scale, live reenactment of colonists protesting taxation without representation by throwing British tea into Boston Harbor, a pivotal event leading to the American Revolution.
“This is the kind of event when all is said and done, if you tabulate it out, all the work that has been done all year long to promote this, it’s going to be well over $1 million to do just this one event,” said Jonathan Lane, executive director of Revolution 250, a consortium of more than 70 Bay State organizations working together on the commemoration.
Lane stopped by the Old Burying Ground in Cambridge on Friday to honor John Hicks, a Tea Party participant and a militiaman of the Revolutionary Army. Hicks was killed in 1775 in Arlington during the British retreat from the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
Lane joined other reenactment organizers at the Cambridge cemetery as they placed a commemorative Tea Party plaque at Hicks’ grave, part of a year-long initiative recognizing all known participants of the historical event.
The final grave marker ceremony will be Nov. 28 at the Granary Burying Ground where prominent revolutionary leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock will be honored. Friday’s marked the 135th ceremony to date.
Harborfest organizers placed special emphasis on the Tea Party’s 250th anniversary during the Fourth-of-July weekend festival, with the Old State House opening ‘Impassioned Destruction.’ The ongoing exhibit explores protests in the context of 1773, but also in other moments throughout history to today.
Revolutionary Spaces, which oversees the Old State House and Old South Meeting House, held a weekend-long festival in late September that celebrated voices of revolution from the past, present and future.
Going forward, an original play chronicling Phillis Wheatley’s time in Boston will be running at the Old State House in November. Wheatley is considered the first African-American to publish a book of poetry.
And anniversary day, Dec. 16, will be full of programs from Downtown Crossing to the Harborwalk, including a presentation at Old South Meeting House that will highlight two weeks of Town Meetings leading up to the actual destruction of the tea, said Evan O’Brien, creative manager at Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum.
O’Brien said the principles and themes of the Boston Tea Party are still applicable today: representation in government and the right to protest
“The biggest thing is the impact an ordinary citizen can make on the grand scale,” he said. “It was ordinary people supposedly, not necessarily of the upper class or that sort of thing or were all well known; but people that had ordinary trades that did an extraordinary thing, and they’re worthy of that recognition.”
