Thomas Crafts Jr.

(July 13, 1740 – January 14, 1799) 

Thomas Crafts Jr., a decorative painter and japanner, took part in the Boston Tea Party in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1773. His brother-in-law, Samuel Gore, would join Thomas in the “destruction of the tea.”  

In 1763, Thomas married Frances Pinckney Gore, the eldest daughter of the wealthy and influential John Gore, Esq.  Shortly after their marriage, Thomas, along with fellow Loyal Nine members such as Benjamin Edes and Thomas Chase, helped organize people to protest the Stamp Act of 1765. He would join the Freemasons of St. Andrew’s Masonic lodge on December 24, 1761, and subsequently became a member of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. He was also a member of Paddock’s Regiment of Artillery. In 1770, he served as coroner during the Boston Massacre Trial, investigating the deaths of the five deceased Bostonians.  

Crafts first lived on Back St., then Salem St., in Boston’s North End. He then moved opposite the Liberty Tree, to what is now Boylston and Washington Streets, where he had his shop at Raphael’s Head, located “two doors to the southward of the Liberty Tree”. 

He was appointed to several committees prior to the beginning of the American Revolution, including one to help find employment for the poor and sufferers under the Boston Port Bill, and another to put into effect the resolutions of the Continental Congress. On May 8, 1776, Crafts was commissioned by the Massachusetts House of Representatives as Colonel of the Regiment of Artillery, with Paul Revere as Lieutenant Colonel. He was chosen to read the Declaration of Independence from the (Old) State House balcony on July 18, 1776. Military records show that he remained in that post through February 29, 1779, when he resigned from the commission. Afterward, he accepted a temporary command of Castle Island in Boston Harbor. He was thanked for his service on August 26, 1779, upon Lt. Col. Paul Revere’s return to that post. 

Thomas Crafts Jr. died in Roxbury, Massachusetts, on January 14, 1799. He is likely buried in Copp’s Hill Burying Ground in Boston, Massachusetts.