Peggy Stewart on fire

Maryland Historical Society

The Peggy Stewart was a ship owned by merchants Anthony Stewart and James Dick of Annapolis and William McGachen of Baltimore. On October 19, 1774, patriots pressured Stewart to set the Peggy Stewart on fire because it carried a load of imported tea, which many colonists were boycotting to protest Parliament's Tea Act of 1773. The burning of the Peggy Stewart in Annapolis harbor marked an important step toward revolution in Maryland.

The Incident
Anthony Stewart (1738-1812) and his father-in-law James Dick were merchants with stores in Annapolis and nearby Londontown. Together with Baltimore merchant William McGachen (?-1783), the two partners bought a brigantine and named it Peggy Stewart after Anthony Stewart's daughter. In the summer of 1774, just months after the Boston Tea Party and with an American tea boycott still in effect, the Peggy Stewart left England with 2,320 pounds of tea intended for T. C. Williams & Co. of Annapolis. It is unclear exactly what or when Stewart and the ship's captain knew about the tea, but a rival Annapolis merchant working in London passed on a "hint" about the cargo in a letter to his partners back home. Annapolis merchant Joshua Johnson wrote, "I should not be surprized to hear that you have made a Bon Fire of the Peggy Stewart."

The Peggy Stewart arrived in Annapolis harbor on October 15, 1774. Anthony Stewart paid the duty on the tea, upsetting patriots who may have been tipped off by Johnson's letter. Years earlier, Stewart, Dick, and the Williams partners had been accused of violating another boycott, the 1769 non-importation agreement, so patriots were in no mood to let the merchants escape punishment. Anne Arundel County patriots gathered for a public meeting in Annapolis on October 19, where they were joined by others from elsewhere in Maryland.

There are different versions of what happened during and after the meeting on October 19. Moderates reportedly thought that burning the tea was sufficient punishment, but radicals apparently wanted to tar and feather Anthony Stewart if he did not destroy his ship as well. By the time the crowd voted for the less violent course, Stewart and James and Joseph Williams had already been rowed to the brig by two radical leaders, who supposedly told Stewart that he risked harm to himself, his family, and his house if he did not put the Peggy Stewart to the torch. Stewart and the Williamses ran the ship aground and set it on fire. A cheering crowd watched as the Peggy Stewart burned down to the waterline and sank.

Marylanders saw the burning of the Peggy Stewart as a turning point in the patriot movement. Valuable property had been destroyed to protest English taxation, and many were now ready to take action to back up their patriotic ideas and words. Anthony Stewart soon left Annapolis for England; later he joined other Loyalists in New York and Nova Scotia. Six months after the Peggy Stewart's destruction, the Revolutionary War began in Massachusetts.

Baltz, Shirley V. The Quays of the City: An Account of the Bustling Eighteenth Century Port of Annapolis. Annapolis, Md.: The Liberty Tree, Ltd., 1975.

Jensen, Ann Dowsett. The World Turned Upside Down: Children of 1776. Centreville, Md.: Cornell-Maritime Press, 2001.