Peter Mackintosh

(October 6, 1757 – November 23, 1846) 

In 1773, Peter Mackintosh was a 16-year-old blacksmith’s apprentice working in the shop of Richard Gridley in Boston, Massachusetts.

Mackintosh recalled several men coming to the shop to obtain soot for their faces prior to participating in the “destruction of the tea.” In his own account, he clearly remembered people preparing for the evening but made no claims of his own involvement. In Benjamin Bussey Thatcher’s 1835 work Traits of the Tea Party, it states that “Mr. Peter McIntosh, of this city (Boston), was at that time a blacksmith’s apprentice […]” and “that some of the Party ran into such places to disguise their faces hastily with soot, –recalls the circumstance that several of them visited his master’s premises with that view.” Thatcher goes on to say that Mackintosh remembered multiple men being at Gridley’s shop, like Henry Purkitt, Samuel Sprague, Samuel Peck, and others listed as participants in the Boston Tea Party. His account goes on to say “Their part of the play there was chiefly to jump over into the flats by the side of one of the vessels — for it was nearly low tide (Hooton says just beginning to flow) — and, with other boys, by direction of the commander, beat up more thoroughly the fragments of boxes and masses of tea, which were thrown over in too great haste.” Despite this, Mackintosh did not discuss that he himself was a part of this action besides being a witness. 

During the Revolutionary War, Peter Mackintosh’s blacksmith skills were used as an artificer, principally “ironing carriages” as described in his Revolutionary War pension application. Mackintosh first enlisted in Boston on June 20, 1775, and served for 10 months; he served again in August 1776 for a two-month stint. Finally, he once again enlisted on December 1, 1778, and served for 19 months. Mackintosh died before his pension claim could be awarded; the struggle for his pension was extended because he had never actually seen battle during the war. In the end, the pension was issued on June 25, 1850, retroactive to the date of his death, and awarded to the four surviving children at the time of his death: Betsey, Peter, Jane, and Sarah. However, only Betsey and Sarah were alive by 1854.  

Peter Mackintosh, who lived long enough to be photographed, died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on November 23, 1846, and is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.