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GARDNER There are perhaps only a few local residents who realize that there is a strongGardner connection with the Boston Tea Party and nowthat connection has been formally commemorated.

Joseph Payson, a Gardner resident who participated in the famed Boston Tea Party, was recognized by local officials at the Old Burying Ground on Oct. 25. A commemorative plaque was placed on Paysons gravestone as part of a movement sponsored by the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum, a group dedicated to recognizing all members of the Dec. 16, 1773, protest event by the time of its 250th anniversary in two years.

Payson, who was born in Roxbury in 1743, served in the Revolutionary War following his participation in theBoston Tea Party, in which American colonists expressed their displeasure with Englands tax policies by dumping chests of tea into the citys harbor.

(This ceremony) really helps to bring our local history home, in a literal sense of the term, said Mayor Michael Nicholson. In elementary school and in middle school, you learn about our American history, you learn about the Boston Tea Party and the effects that it had, and you learn about the American Revolution and who fought there, but I think a lot of the times you forget that it was right in our backyard.

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Payson lived at 48 Chapel St. in the residence that eventually became the former Hunter Farm, which local residents of a certain age will remember was a popular spot to buy homemade ice cream between the years of 1964 and 1984. Gladys Hunter, whose family operated the farm and who still lives in the house, is the grandmother of City Council President Elizabeth Kazinskas.

Marion Knoll, the coordinator of the Gardner Museum, said Payson, who worked as a shoemaker in addition to being a farmer, was one of the original signers of the petition to incorporate Gardner into a town in 1785.

At Gardners second Town Meeting in September of 1785, Joseph Payson was elected sealer of leather, a town officer who had the authority to see that all (leather products) were made honestly in quality and quantity, Knoll said. (Payson) put a seal or stamp of approval on all the items that he inspected and certified.

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Payson is listed as a head of household in the Gardner census of 1780, a year in which only 530 inhabitants lived in the community, according to Knoll.

Payson died peacefully in Gardner on April 13, 1833.

The image depicted on Paysons commemorative marker was inspired by Nathanial Curriers The Destruction of the Tea at Boston Harbor lithograph created in 1846, a popular and often-used artistic representation of the Boston Tea Party. The marker will be on display indefinitely, according to officials.

We believe that the Boston Tea Party is the single most important event leading up to the American Revolution, said Even OBrien, creative manager of the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum. Its principles and values speak through the generations, and ideas of protesting against injustice and tyranny are things we all can relate to, even just shy of 250 years later.

Since 2019, a total of 87 commemorative markers have been placed at graves of known Boston Tea Party participants buried within some of the states oldest burying grounds. Over the next two years, leading up to the 250th anniversary of the event, which will take place on Dec. 16, 2023, the group plans to place additional markers at the graves of all 125 known participants buried throughout New England and the U.S.

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Gardner resident honored for his role in Boston Tea Party, nearly 250 years later - The Gardner News