In December 1774, a ship called the Greyhound arrived in the New Jersey town with tea from the East India Company, and the captain, who had been forewarned of the mood of the country, secretly loaded the tea into a fellow sea captain's basement. Word got out, however, and colonists went to the house, got the tea, and burned it on the village green. The East India Company sued those suspected of destroying the tea, but the lawyers of the defendants kept delaying the trials until, finally, the American Revolution began and the British no longer had jurisdiction over the area.
