Thomas Melvill, Sr., 1751-1832, revolutionary patriot, participant in the Boston Tea Party and Revolutionary War veteran, and grandfather of author Herman Melville, and Henry Alexander Scammell Dearborn, 1783-1851, congressman from Massachusetts and Collector of the Port of Boston.  Partially printed Document Signed, Thos Melvill and H.A.S. Dearborn, one page, small folio, Port of Boston, Massachusetts, May 12, 1818.

As the Collector and Naval Officer at the Port of Boston, Dearborn and Melvill sign an import certification and statement of customs duties for a shipment of cotton from Calcutta bound for New York.

Melvill, a 1769 graduate of Princeton, was a prominent figure in early Boston.  He was a close friend of Samuel Adams, and as a major in the Revolutionary Army he served with distinction alongside fellow officer Paul Revere.

On December 16, 1773, barely disguised as Mohawk Indians, the Sons of Liberty, a group led by Adams that included Melvill and a number of other American patriots, broke open and emptied 342 chests of tea from the British ships Eleanor, Dartmouth, and Beaver, anchored at Griffiin’s Wharf, into Boston harbor.  They acted to protest the Townshend duties, a nominal British tax on tea, and the monopoly on tea trade that the Tea Act had given the British East India Company.  John Adams wrote in his diary:

This is the most magnificent Movement of all.  There is a Dignity, a Majesty, a Sublimity in this last Effort of the Patriots that I greatly admire. . . . This Destruction of the Tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, intrepid, & inflexible, and it must have so important Consequences and so lasting, that I cannot but consider it as an Epocha in History.

The action infuriated King George III and Parliament.  In retaliation, Parliament passed what the colonies dubbed the Intolerable Acts, which, among other things, closed Boston harbor until restitution was made for the destroyed tea, annulled the Massachusetts colony charter and installed a military governor, and revived the arrangement for quartering British troops in American homes.  The Intolerable Acts spawned more protests, caused the Continental Congress to convene, and eventually led to war between Britain and the American colonies.

After the Revolutionary War, President George Washington appointed Melvill Commissioner of Boston and Charlestown Harbor.  Presidents John Adams, Jefferson, and Madison each reappointed him.

Melvill was the grandfather of renowned writer Herman Melville, the author of the classic Moby Dick.  Herman Melville added the final “e” to the family name.

Dearborn was the son of Revolutionary War hero Henry Dearborn, who saw action at Bunker Hill and participated in the siege of Yorktown and who later served as Secretary of War under President Jefferson.  The younger Dearborn succeeded his father as Collector of Customs in Boston, serving from 1812 until 1829.  During the War of 1812, he served as brigadier general commanding the Volunteers in the defenses of Boston Harbor.  He later served one term in Congress as an Anti-Jacksonian, 1831-1833.

Both Melvill and Dearborn have signed this document with strong, bold signatures.  A partial separation on the center fold has been repaired.  Otherwise the document is in fine condition.