Delete comment from: Boston 1775
No, I didn’t confirm anything of the sort. Please be more careful in your interpretations. (And it would help to be more precise in your writing; I can’t tell who “someone who likely wasn’t even there” refers to.)
As far as I can tell, your claim is that Charles Conner supplied boats and led a third of the men at the Boston Tea Party despite no evidence for that besides your family’s oral tradition. George R. T. Hewes accused Conner of stealing tea merely because of an undocumented debt (not sure how that accusation would help with the debt). Supposedly Conner had no tea on his person and commanded the respect of the town while Hewes, according to you, was a notorious liar and coward. Yet the merchant John Andrews believed Hewes’s accusation against Conner and put it in a letter he wrote in 1773.
I don’t see “reasonable logic” in that interpretation of the evidence. Just a lot of wishful thinking.
My belief is that a handful of men tried to make off with some of the valuable tea during the destruction. Conner was one of them, and circumstances—his business in the center of town, his height, his Irish accent, perhaps his reputation as a captain, Hewes knowing him—meant he’s the only one whose name got preserved. Conner stood out from the crowd too much for his own good. Hewes and perhaps other men spotted and reported him. The crowd grabbed back the tea and sent Conner packing.
But Charles Conner was too much part of Boston society to ostracize completely, and he stayed with the Patriots. In late 1775 he escaped from besieged Boston, bringing a document about the Loyalists. Later in the war he cooperated with the town and state governments. (Notably, Hewes’s uncle Robert did the same.)
I wrote the postings about Charles Conner (including what I think is a clearly false accusation that he supplied horses for British soldiers who wanted to desert) because I hoped to explore his whole life as it was documented. Not just that moment on Griffin’s Wharf, which was far from a high point, but his earlier maritime service, the great fire, his presence at the Boston Massacre, and so on.
If there are more sources to study, I’d be happy to see pointers to them. But I’m not interested in claims without evidence.
Jul 14, 2021, 12:28:42 AM
Posted to Capt. Charles Conner: mariner, trader, letter of horses