Thomas Spear (1725)

(October 17, 1725 – April 9, 1793) 

Thomas Spear was a blacksmith specializing in edge tools in Boston at the time of the Boston Tea Party.            

Spear and his son, Thomas, could potentially both be participants in the “destruction of the tea” on Griffin’s Wharf on December 16, 1773. Historian Francis S. Drake, in his 1884 book Tea Leaves, describes a Thomas Spear as a participant. In the account, it is stated that Spear “ran into his master’s blacksmith shop.” This seems to imply that Spear’s son is more likely to have been the participant, but there is no additional evidence to confirm either way.