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I, Robert Sessions, was living in Boston; at the time, in the family of Mr. Davis, a lumber merchant as a common laborer. On that eventful evening when Mr. Davis came in from the town meeting, I asked him what was to be done with the tea. "They are now throwing it overboard", he replied. Receiving permission, I went immediately to the spot. Everything was as light as day; by the means of lamps and torches. A pin might be seen lying on the wharf.
I went on board where they were at work and took hold with my own hands. I was not one of those appointed to destroy the tea and who disguised themselves as Indians, but was a volunteer. The disguised men being largely men of family and position in Boston, while I was a young man whose home and relatives were in Connecticut. The appointed and disguised party proving too small for the quick work necessary other young men similarly circumstanced with myself, joined them in their labors.
The chests were drawn up by a tackle. One man bringing them forward, another putting a rope around them and others hoisting them to the deck and carrying them to the vessels side. The chests were then opened, the tea emptied over the side and the chests thrown overboard. Perfect regularity prevailed during the whole transaction. Although there were many people on the wharf, entire silence was meddled with but the tea's on board. After having emptied the whole, the deck was swept clean and everything put in its proper place. An officer on board was requested to come up from the cabin and see that no damage was done except to the tea.
At about the close of the scene a man was discovered making his way through the crowd with his pockets filled with tea. He was immediately laid hold of and his coat skirts torn off with their pockets and thrown into the dock with the rest of the tea.
I was obliged to leave the town at once, as it was of course known that I was concerned in the affair.
(The Boston Tea Party as Robert Sessions remembers it and wrote of it.)
October 5, 1832 before Judge Oliver Morris, Probate Judge of Hampden Co., Massachusetts.
"That sometime in November 1776 while encamped at English Neighborhood General Greene applied to the Commander of Col.William's regiment to furnish a man either an officer or sergeant who could be entrusted with a message to the President of Congress then in session at Philadelphia, that the said applicant was selected and undertook to perform the duty. That he was furnished with a horse and two letters one to be delivered to a commissary at Amboy and then proceeded to Philadelphia where he arrived in the evening and immediately repaired to Mr. Hancock's lodging and gave him the letter. That Mr. Hancock examined the letter and directed said applicant to call at congress hall on the following morning for instructions and that he called as directed and was then told by President Hancock to call again the next morning. That the next morning he again called at congress hall and president Hancock put into his hands a letter directed to General Washington; with orders to deliver it into the hands of General Washington personally as speedily as possible and that he immediately proceeded on his return and met General Washington; in Elizabeth town on his retreat toward Philadelphia and placed the letter in his hands and then joined his company and regiment at English Neighborhood and about one week after his return the regiment was discharged by general orders. The time of their service having expired and the said applicant returned home having served three months".
He (Rev. J. W. Sessions) was born in Lunenburg, Vt., one of seven children, three of them Congregational ministers, one of them a missionary to the Sandwich Islands. The youngest of the family was above sixty years old at the time of death. The parents were of the old Puritan stock, who trained up their children in fear of the Lord taught them the catechism, the strict observance of the Sabbath and all were members of the Congregational church.
The grandfather was a man of much eminence, living in Westminister, Vt., a member of the Continental Congress and a deacon in the Congregational church. In a time when provisions were very scarce in that section of the country, when they had little to eat but potatoes and salt, the good deacon saw a deer come out of the woods near his house late Sunday afternoon; he seized his gun and shot the deer. For this the church brought him up for discipline. He pleaded that it was both work of necessity and of mercy, and that he was justified in killing this game, to providentially brought within range of his trusty gun, even if it were before sunset on Sunday.
The church, however, instructed the pastor to read the sentence of excommunication on the following Sabbath. The deacon was asked to rise in his pew while the sentence was read severing his relation to the church for Sabbath breaking. He arose, and as the pastor was about to read, reaching behind him, he took his gun which he had carried to the meeting house, leveled it at the minister's head, and in the most determined tone said, "I forbid that paper being read from the pulpit."
The pastor quietly remarked "All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient and I do not think it expedient to read this paper."
The deacon not only lived but died a member and deacon of the church!