News of the Boston Tea Party had already reached this Maine city by the time a shipment of tea arrived York harbor in September 1774. The colonists in York agreed that the tea would brought onshore and stored until "further Discovery could be made," but that night, a group broke into the basement where the tea had been stowed and took it. (Guards had been posted, but presumably didn't put up much of a fuss.) However, merchant John Sayward, who owned the tea-bearing ship, wrote in his diary that the tea was later returned, after the desired statement had been made.
