YORKTOWN Spilling the Tea since 1774

On November 7, 1774, residents of York County threw a “tea party,” reminiscent of the Boston Tea Party of 1773, when they boarded the ship Virginia and dumped two half-chests of tea into the York River. The first Virginia Revolutionary Convention that met in August of that year had adopted a resolution to refuse to purchase English goods or consume tea, hoping to pressure English merchants to persuade Parliament to repeal tax laws and regulations that Virginia leaders believed to be unconstitutional. The tea that reached Yorktown in November was en route from the London mercantile firm of John Norton and Sons for the Williamsburg merchants John Prentis and Company. The men in Yorktown acted after growing impatient waiting for guidance from a committee in Williamsburg. They did not damage the ship or any other cargo; they only dumped the tea. Later, committees in York and Gloucester Counties condemned Norton, Prentis, and the ship's captain for violating the Virginia boycott. They order