On the night of December 22, 1774 — almost exactly one year after the Boston Tea Party — a group of men in Cumberland County, New Jersey, dressed as Native Americans, broke into a cellar, seized a shipment of British tea, and burned it in an open field. Richard Howell was among them.

This act of defiance is known as the Greenwich Tea Burning.

Greenwich and the Cohansey River#

Greenwich (pronounced Green-wich) was one of the largest towns in Cumberland County at the time, situated along the Cohansey River. It was at these docks that the English merchant brig Greyhound (Captain J. Allen, master) arrived on December 12–14, 1774, carrying a cargo of tea bound originally for Philadelphia.

Howell Homestead as it looked in 2010

Ebenezer Howell, Richard Howell’s father, removed from Newark, Delaware in 1769 and 4 years later built this house. Richard and his twin brother Lewis were 19 years old when they moved into the house.

At the time of the homestead survey there were initials “RH 1773” and “LH” carved next to the rear doorway. A year later after moving into this house on December 22, 1774, Richard and Lewis Howell participated in the Greenwich Tea Burning. They used their father’s house as a staging area to gather with other tea burners to plan their night’s activities.