On April 19, 1774, a British merchant ship landed at Sandy Hook with a provocative cargo. Five months earlier, Bostonians staged the so-called Boston Tea Party—throwing the East India Tea Company’s tea into Boston Harbor. In response, the Royal Government passed the “Intolerable Acts” to punish the people of Boston and better enforce the tea tax. Colonists throughout the Thirteen Colonies retaliated by boycotting tea and other British goods. Now, the ship, Nancy, hoped to land its cargo of 698 tea chests (twice the amount destroyed in the Boston Tea Party) in New York City. If the tea was landed and sold, it would be a major breach in the colonial boycott. 

It had been a difficult voyage for the Nancy. A newspaper account noted that the ship was “without her mizen mast and one of her anchors, which were lost in a gale of wind.” In the 1700s, ocean-going ships bound for New York commonly stopped at Sandy Hook, which separates the open ocean from the sheltered waters of lower New York Harbor. Here, ships received fresh water after the long ocean voyage and secured a pilot to guide the ship around lower New York Harbor’s shallows and into the city’s piers. 

Captain Benjamin Lockyer of the Nancy summoned the resident pilot at Sandy Hook, William Dobbs, to board the ship and guide it to New York. Dobbs, an employee of the City of New York, refused to cooperate. Dobbs was closely tied to the city’s leaders based on prior employment of the administrator of the city’s almshouse; he would serve in the Continental Army as a sergeant from 1776-1781, including being put on-call to guide French fleets four times.

Dobbs gave Lockyer a letter “from sundry gentlemen of this city, informing him of the determined resolution of the citizens not to suffer tea on board of his ship to be landed.” Lockyer responded by requesting a personal passage to New York “to procure the necessaries [for his crew] and make a protest.”

Dobbs was unmoved. The newspaper report further noted that “the pilot would not bring up the Captain [to New York].” The Nancy sat at Sandy Hook without fresh provisions or a pilot to navigate the shallows of New York’s lower harbor.

A few days later, a sloop “with a committee of citizens” came to the Nancy. It is impossible to know exactly what transpired between this committee and Captain Lockyer, but the committeemen declined to let the Nancy pass to New York. Further, at least some of these committeemen remained after the meeting: “a committee of observation was immediately appointed to… remain there near the tea ship till it departs for London.” 

However, a handbill was printed and circulated in New York stating that Lockyer, but not his ship, would be allowed to come to New York:

The long expected TEA SHIP arrived last night at Sandy-Hook, but the pilot would not bring up the Captain until the sense of the city was known. The Committee were immediately informed of its arrival, and that the Captain solicits to come up to provide necessaries for his return. The ship to remain at Sandy-Hook. The Committee conceiving it to be the sense of the city that he should have such liberty, signified it to the Gentleman who is to supply him with provisions, and other necessaries. Advice of this was immediately dispatched to the Captain; and whenever he comes up, care will be taken that he does not enter the custom-house, and that no time be lost dispatching him.

Lockyer was apparently permitted to come to New York, but was strictly supervised while in the city and only permitted to purchase items needed to enable the Nancy’s departure.

After five days at Sandy Hook, the Nancy pulled up its anchor and limped away. The senior-most British official in New York, Lt. Governor Cadwallader Colden, complained that he never knew that Lockyer or his ship was at Sandy Hook. He blamed Lockyer for not requesting his help. 

While surviving documents discuss the Nancy’s difficult time at Sandy Hook from a New Yorker’s perspective, it is important to remember that dozens of Monmouth Countians regularly sailed the waters around Sandy Hook. Each day, they ferried goods from Monmouth farms to New York in barges and sloops; they fished the banks off Sandy Hook and sold their catch in New York. These Monmouth Countians would have seen the Nancy. Further, Monmouth Countians were likely in the committee that visited Captain Lockyer and the subsequent Committee of Observation. They had it within their power to assist the Nancy with supplies or pilot services and chose not to do so. 

Many later accounts of this event liken the boycott of the Nancy to the Boston Tea Party. Some narratives suggest that the Committee detained Lockyer and took control of the ship. Original sources do not support these details. The stiff-arm given to the Nancy was not a second Boston Tea Party. The Nancy’s tea chests were not thrown overboard and Lockyer was permitted to purchase a narrow set of provisions. This discipline was not evident a few days later when a mob gathered in New York and then proceeded to the docks to sack the ship London after it was learned the ship was carrying eighteen tea chests. 

The decision to turn away the Nancy was a strong expression of colonial solidarity. It also appears to be the first instance of Monmouth Countians participating in the anti-British agitation that immediately preceded the American Revolution. Soon, the people of Monmouth County would form their own committees to coordinate further dissent and seize vulnerable British ships. 

Related Historical Site: Fraunces Tavern

Sources: The Parliamentary Register Or, History of the Proceedings and Debates of the House of Commons (London: J. Debrit, 1775) vol. 1, p70; Pennsylvania Packet, April 25, 1774; Peter Force, American Archives, (Force and Clarke: Washington, DC, 1837) Series 4, vol., 1, p247; New Jersey Archives, 1st Series, Documents Relating to the Colonial, Revolutionary and Post-Revolutionary History of the State of New Jersey, vol. 29, pp. 348-50; Handbill titled “To the Public.” at:  https://www.alamy.com/history-of-the-united-states-new-yorks-tea-party-handbill-about-boycotting-the-ship-loaded-with-english-tea-newly-arrived-in-sandy-hook-new-york-april-19-1774-image211094009.html; The New York Tea Party, https://www.frauncestavernmuseum.org/the-new-york-tea-party; New York Almanak, https://www.newyorkalmanack.com/2018/06/1774-patriots-new-yorks-tea-party/; Genealogical webpage on William Dobbs: https://familypedia.fandom.com/wiki/William_Henry_Dobbs_(1716-1781).