Edenton Tea Party

On 25 Oct. 1774, at the home of Mrs. Elizabeth King, 51 women from Edenton [3], [4] including reputed leader Penelope Barker, drew up a resolution to uphold the "particular resolves" drafted by the First Provincial Congress [5] at New Bern exactly two months before. In light of the celebrated Boston Tea Party, which had taken place less than a year before, it was perhaps inevitable that this later occasion would be called the "Edenton Tea Party"-although tea drinking was not mentioned in the ladies' patriotic statement. Their spirited meeting and declaration might have passed unnoticed had not word of it reached London, where the Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser [6] published an account of the event on 16 Jan. 1775 [6]. Over the years a satirical cartoon accompanying the article has achieved near-icon status.

The 51 signatures to the resolution published by the London paper were long thought to be an authentic list of the signers. Later research, however, has shown some discrepancies in the list. There is little doubt that the meeting did take place, as contemporary letters mentioned it. Some historians consider it probably the "earliest instance of political activity on the part of women" in the American colonies and one of the colorful events that heralded the coming American Revolution [7]. A colonial teapot mounted on a revolutionary cannon marks the site of the Edenton Tea Party [8].