People and communities
Greenwich: the tea burned, but the town did not speak as one
Documented history · Sources compared
A commemorative history preserves both the tea-burning tradition and evidence that its neighbors disagreed about the act.
Fire in a field
Cumberland County’s account dates the Greenwich tea burning to December 22, 1774. It describes men taking tea from Daniel Bowen’s cellar and burning it nearby. The county also records a 1908 monument, which belongs to the event’s later commemoration rather than its contemporary evidence. Cumberland County, Greenwich Tea Burning.
A diarist’s divided neighborhood
Frank Andrews’s 1908 history reproduces Philip Vickers Fithian’s next-day diary entry. Fithian describes arguments among inhabitants, including people pleased by the destruction who disapproved of how it was done. Andrews acknowledges that the entry does not state Fithian participated, even while accepting a tradition that he did. The diary passage and the later attribution answer different questions. Frank D. Andrews, The Tea-Burners of Cumberland County (1908).
Two kinds of legal action
Andrews separately describes owners’ civil damage suits and efforts to obtain criminal indictments. His account quotes Ebenezer Elmer’s journal about unsuccessful grand-jury proceedings in 1775. It should not be compressed into a trial acquittal. The original court files would allow a closer reconstruction than the patriotic summary published more than a century later. Frank D. Andrews, The Tea-Burners of Cumberland County (1908).
Sources and research limits
- Cumberland County, Greenwich Tea Burning — Full official commemorative account read.
- Frank D. Andrews, The Tea-Burners of Cumberland County (1908) — Downloaded OCR; read printed pp. 12–13 on legal proceedings and p. 22 on Fithian’s diary. No original court file or diary manuscript was inspected.
The participant tradition is not treated as proof of Fithian’s personal involvement. Andrews’s speculation about motives and his triumphant interpretation are not adopted as findings from the courts.