Francis Akeley/Eckley

Francis Akeley was a wheelwright living in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1773.

He and his family lost their home and his business in the Great Boston Fire on March 20, 1760. Throughout the 1760s, life did not improve for the Akeley family. They were frequent residents of the almshouse, and some of their older children were indentured to various families across the province to ease the burden on the Town of Boston in caring for them. In September of 1772, Francis Akeley was designated “lame” at the time of his admission to the almshouse, which calls his involvement in the Boston Tea Party into question.  

Whether Francis Akeley was an actual participant in the Boston Tea Party cannot be proven or disproven with the surviving documentation. Still, his presence in Tea Leaves designates him as a participant. In Tea Leaves, author Francis S. Drake mentions an “Eckley,” and states that he is a barber who “was informed against for his participation in the destruction of the tea and committed to prison”. There are no records for a barber in Boston in 1773 with the last name Eckley, so Drake likely made a mistake in the name in his text. Over time, people pointed to Francis Akeley as the likely participant, although documentation is limited to the claims of his descendants.