The Greenwich Tea Burning

Calendar March 26, 2026
Pre-War, Tea-Burning, Greenwich, Cumberland-County

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.1

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.2

Pre-War Letters

Calendar February 28, 2015
Letters, Pre-War, Richard Howell, Correspondence

Letters written before Richard Howell goes to war.1

  1. Richard Howell (1754–1802) was born in Gloucester County, New Jersey, and read law under Joseph Ellis in Burlington, N.J., prior to the Revolution. His pre-war political engagement included participation in the Greenwich Tea Burning of December 22, 1774 — one of the few documented acts of colonial protest outside of Boston — and service on local Committees of Correspondence in Cumberland County. Primary source letters from this period have not yet been digitized for this page; for context on his wartime service, see the Revolutionary War Correspondence section. ↩︎

Pre-War Timeline

Calendar February 28, 2015
Timeline, Pre-War, Richard Howell, Colonial Period, Wales, New Jersey

This timeline covers the Howell family’s origins and Richard Howell’s early life, from the Welsh emigration through the colonial period and the years leading up to the American Revolution.

c. 1700s, Wales#

Howell Family Emigrates from Wales The Howell family emigrates from Wales to the American colonies, settling in the Delaware Valley region. Reynold Howell, Richard’s grandfather, is among the early settlers.[^1]

c. 1724, Newark, Delaware#

Reynold Howell Establishes the Family in America Reynold Howell (Richard’s grandfather) purchases a plantation near Newark, New Castle County, Delaware.[^2] The family takes root in the mid-Atlantic colonial community.