National Constitution Center

The Robinson Tea Chest

On Display through 2010

For the first time since 1974, The Robinson Tea Chest is now on public display. The National Constitution Center unveiled the tea chest on the 235th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, December 16, 1773.

The Robinson Tea Chest is the only tea chest that can trace to its provenance to that historic event, when 342 chests were dumped into the Boston Harbor. The Robinson Tea Chest will be on display in the Center’s main exhibition, The Story of We the People, along with a related newspaper article from The Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter from December 9, 1773.

This rare chest has only been on public display twice – in 1910 at the Appalachian Exposition in Knoxville, Tennessee, and in 1974 at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery Bicentennial exhibit titled “In the Minds and Hearts of the People, Prologue to the American Revolution: 1760 – 1774.”

Letters and photographs chronicle the chest’s history from the time it was recovered in the Harbor on December 17, 1773, to the present day, as it has been passed down as a treasured family heirloom. The Robinson Tea Chest is on loan to the Center for two years from the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum history center, a facility of Historic Tours of America, Inc.

The Robinson Tea Chest is included in general admission and free to CityPass holders. For more information please visit National Constitution Center Web site.