During the summer of '76, however, tea became scarce in the interior of the country, and those who possessed a stock of the article, held it fast, in the expectation of a great rise in its value. This led to female insurrection in several of the counties that bordered upon the Hudson River. Storehouses containing the covered Bohea, at the time al-most the only kind of tea in general use, were besieged by thirsty housewives, sometimes for several days in succession, and for the most part successfully; the owners being at length compelled to sell by retail, at reasonable prices.

Chapter I

36 THE MCDONALD PAPERS

<top margin> Westchester Tea party - New Castle </top margin> In the month of August, a cavalcade of about one hundred Dutchess County women suddenly appeared at Fishkill, where the riders paraded before the house of Colonel Brinkerhoff, an extensive country merchant, "insisting," as the old news-papers say, "upon having tea at the lawful price of six shill-ings per pound." They scolded so long, and threated so fiercely, that the gallant militia officer was glad at length to buy his peace by surrendering to them one chest from his store, upon the terms they proposed. The Amazons then withdrew, but Colonel Brinkerhoff dreaded their return, and in a few days afterward, sold out his entire stock of tea to some New York speculators, who for fear of another female outbreak, "precipitately forwarded the nefarious stuff," as the patriots termed it, to the North River, where it was put afloat and conveyed to Albany; the sloop that contained it making her escape, although guards to watch over her had been planted by the intrepid tea drinkers, upon both banks of the Hudson. It was a short time after the battle of Whiteplains that the excursion, commonly called the "Westchester tea-party," took place.