Obadiah Curtis

(August 2, 1724 – November 8, 1811) 

A local wheelwright and merchant from Roxbury, Massachusetts, Obadiah Curtis participated in the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773.  

He served in several civic positions in Boston, Massachusetts, including as foreman (or Captain) of Fire Engine 8, alongside Boston Tea Party participant Nathaniel Bradlee. 

Obadiah Curtis was one of many who voluntarily stood watch under Captain Ezekiel Cheever aboard the ship Dartmouth on November 30, 1773, to prevent the unloading of the East India Company tea. Curtis’ family lore claimed that during the “destruction of the tea”, Obadiah breached an established rule and kept a bit of the tea. He sewed it into a teabag that was passed down through the family for generations. Curtis’ fifth-great-grandson wrote that his grandparents still displayed the packet on their Boston mantlepiece. However, after the death of the last of the family home’s occupants in 1974, the Tea Party memento had disappeared. 

Obadiah was reportedly successful enough as a merchant that he helped to finance General Benedict Arnold’s expedition into Canada from June 1775 through May 1776. In compensation for his investment, Curtis received Continental currency, which frequently collapsed in value. “Not worth a Continental,” was a common phrase at the time.  

Obadiah Curtis died in Newton, Massachusetts, on November 8, 1811. He is buried in East Parish Burying Ground in Newton.