Chestertown Tea Party

For many Memorial Day weekend is associated with Chestertown and the Tea Party Festival that celebrates the town’s colonial past.

It takes a great deal of planning and preliminarily work to put on the festival every year. Planning begins more than 6 months and when the decision was made to cancel the festival, for the second year due to the Covid virus, the vaccine was still in development. Whether the festival could have taken place is a matter of opinion. However very few, if any, of the usual May Festivals happened.

The promise is in 2022 the Chestertown Tea Party Festival will return and be as grand as ever.

So as we wait for another year let’s look back past festivals.

In 1774 the town issued “The Chestertown Resolves” which was their answer to the British after learning of the Boston Tea Act, that was in retaliation for Bostonians dumping tea into the harbor.

The fourth Resolve states “that whoever shall import, or in any way aid or assist in importing, or introducing from any part of Great Britain, or any other place whatsoever, into this town or country, any tea subject to the payment of a duty imposed by the aforesaid act of Parliament. Or, whoever shall wilfully and knowingly sell, buy or consume, or in any way assist in the sale, purchase, or consumption of any tea imported as aforesaid subject to a duty, he, or they, shall be stigmatized as enemies to the liberties of America.”

Local lore is that on May 23rd, 1774, there was a gathering at the town center and they marched down High Street to the brigantine Geddes, and tossed her cargo of tea into the Chester River. The Tea Party re-enactment the highlight of the day. After the reading of the “Chestertown Resolves”. The re-enactors march down High Street and have a stand off with the Red Coats before rowing out to Chestertown’s 18th century replica tall ship, Sultana (standing in for the original Geddes) and throw its cargo of tea overboard.

The weekend wouldn’t have been a success without volunteers and the Chestertown Tea Party Committee, all volunteers themselves, wishes to thank them as well as all of the craft vendors, performers, sponsors and attendees that have been to Chestertown over the years on Memorial Day Weekend.