Thomas Melvill (American patriot)
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Thomas Melvill or Thomas Melville was a merchant, member of the Sons of Liberty, participant in the Boston Tea Party, a major in the American Revolutionary War, a longtime fireman in the Boston Fire Department, state legislator, and paternal grandfather of writer Herman Melville.
Portrait of Priscilla Scollay Melvill, wife of Thomas Melvill, by Francis Alexander, 1820s
Tea taken from the boots of Thomas Melvill, after the Boston Tea Party in 1773 (Old State House Museum, Boston)
Sons of Liberty
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The Sons of Liberty was a loosely organized, clandestine, sometimes violent, political organization active in the Thirteen American Colonies founded to advance the rights of the colonists and to fight taxation by the British government. It played a major role in most colonies in battling the Stamp Act in 1765 and throughout the entire period of the American Revolution. Historian David C. Rapoport called the activities of the Sons of Liberty "mob terror."
A 1765 handbill, announcing an upcoming "Sons of Liberty" public event.
The Bostonian Paying the Excise-Man, 1774 British anti-American propaganda cartoon, referring to the tarring and feathering of Boston Commissioner of Customs John Malcolm four weeks after the Boston Tea Party. The men also are shown pouring "Tea" down Malcolm's throat; note the noose hanging on the Liberty Tree and the Stamp Act posted upside-down
1st row: Samuel Adams • Benedict Arnold • John Hancock • Patrick Henry • James Otis, Jr. 2nd row: Paul Revere • James Swan • Alexander McDougall • Benjamin Rush • Charles Thomson 3rd row: Joseph Warren • Marinus Willett • Oliver Wolcott • Christopher Gadsden • Haym Salomon Not pictured: Hercules Mulligan, Thomas Melvill, Isaac Sears