RI resident who died 2 centuries ago honored for taking part in Boston Tea Party

Paul Edward Parker, Providence Journal
Updated ·2 min read

WARREN – It's fair to assume that when Nicholas Cambell joined a band of protesters dumping tea into Boston Harbor on Dec. 16, 1773, he was probably more concerned with sticking it to King George III than what posterity would think of him.

But on Monday, the Warren resident was lauded for participating in the “single most important event leading up to the American Revolution" and a medallion was placed on his gravesite noting his participation as the protest's 250th anniversary approaches.

The Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, a Boston organization that commemorates the Tea Party, is trying to place a similar medallion on the grave of each participant before the anniversary. Monday's honoring of Cambell marked the 131st grave that has been decorated.

Jackie Coughlin, an interpreter with the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, stands beside the grave of Nicholas Cambell in Warren's North Burial Ground on Monday before placing a medallion marking his participation in the Boston Tea Party in 1773.
Jackie Coughlin, an interpreter with the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, stands beside the grave of Nicholas Cambell in Warren's North Burial Ground on Monday before placing a medallion marking his participation in the Boston Tea Party in 1773.

"They seemed to be ordinary citizens, and they did an extraordinary thing," Evan O'Brien, creative manager of the Boston group, said before the medallion placement in Warren's North Burial Ground.

O'Brien was careful not to diss Rhode Island's own revolutionary warmup act: the burning of the British revenue schooner Gaspee off Warwick in 1772.

"They're both very, very important to the road to the American Revolution," he said.

The medallion placed Monday on the grave of Nicholas Cambell was the 131st such tribute bestowed by the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum.
The medallion placed Monday on the grave of Nicholas Cambell was the 131st such tribute bestowed by the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum.

Nicholas Cambell, also spelled Campbell, was born in Malta in 1732 and was probably a sailor.

Forty years old at the time of the Tea Party, he probably arrived in Warren in 1775 among many moved from Boston when hostilities broke out following the battles in Lexington and Concord and the siege of Boston. He was counted in Warren in Rhode Island's military census of 1777.

People gathered in Warren's North Burial Ground on Monday listen to details about Nicholas Cambell's participation in the Boston Tea Party in 1773.
People gathered in Warren's North Burial Ground on Monday listen to details about Nicholas Cambell's participation in the Boston Tea Party in 1773.

In 1826, the Essex Gazette, in Salem, Massachusetts, published Cambell's account of taking part in the Tea Party.

After serving in the navy during the war, Cambell spent the remainder of his life in Warren, according to Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum. He died July 21, 1829, at age 96.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Warren man's grave decorated for his role in Boston Tea Party