PBA Galleries

Melvill, Thomas and Henry A.S. Dearborn.  Partially printed document, completed in manuscript. Boston, March 27, 1820. 1 page with docketing on verso. Approximately 15x10".

Official declaration that chests of Chinese Tea, imported from Canton in April 1819 by George W. Lyman on the Ship Liverpool, had been sent on to Amsterdam in the Brig Lamosett. Major Thomas Melvill, grandfather of novelist Herman Melville, was one of the Sons of Liberty who, dressed as a Mohawk Indian, took part in the Boston Tea Party. For his Revolutionary service, he was given the political plum appointment of "Naval Officer" of the Port of Boston under Presidents Madison, Monroe and John Quincy Adams. The equally lucrative federal appointment of Collector of the Port went to Massachusetts Congressman Henry Alexander Scammell Dearborn, son of Revolutionary War hero Henry Dearborn, who had been President Jefferson's Secretary of War. George Lyman, after graduating from Harvard, worked with his father in the northwest American fur-trade, eventually moving on to extensive early trade with China.