SYMHC Classics: Sarah Bradlee Fulton

Summary

Stuff You Missed in History Class – SYMHC Classics: Sarah Bradlee Fulton
Release Date: July 4, 2026

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Episode Overview

This classic episode, hosted by Tracy B. Wilson and Holly Fry, commemorates the U.S. Declaration of Independence's 250th anniversary by exploring the life and legacy of Sarah Bradlee Fulton—often called "the mother of the Boston Tea Party." With the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party also near, the hosts dig into Fulton’s life, her involvement in revolutionary activities, and her place in American historical lore. The episode critically examines the sources for Fulton's story, untangling folklore, family tradition, and documented history.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Sarah Bradlee Fulton?

• Tracy introduces the episode as a Revolutionary War-related classic to mark the anniversaries of both the Declaration of Independence (250 years) and the Boston Tea Party (also nearing 250).
• "Sarah Bradlee Fulton, who is sometimes called the mother of the Boston Tea Party... What we know about Sarah Bradlee Fulton is kind of a series of anecdotes. They mostly trace back to the same sources... We can't prove that they didn't happen, but we also can't prove that they did."
  (Tracy, 03:39-04:04)

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2. The Sources and Their Limits

• Primary Sources: The first written link between Fulton and the Tea Party was published by Eliza M. Gill in 1873, almost a century after the event. Another major source is Helen T. Wild’s 1897 piece for the Medford Historical Society.
• Both writers were Medford schoolteachers and DAR founders; most modern accounts trace back to their work.
• The reliability of these sources is questioned:
  • "Neither Gill nor Wild name their sources. But Fulton's grandson, also named John Fulton, had been profiled by the Boston Globe the year before, and he told some similar stories about his grandmother."
    (Holly, 06:43-07:13)
  • Many stories depend on family recollection or local tradition with no contemporaneous documentation.
• The episode repeatedly emphasizes the gap between available evidence and popular legend.
  • "There's no direct evidence to substantiate a lot of it and no corroborating accounts from the same time..."
    (Tracy, 08:58-09:11)

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3. Sarah Bradlee Fulton's Family and Early Life

• Born December 24, 1740, in Dorchester, Massachusetts; later married John Fulton and moved to Medford.
• The Bradlees changed the spelling of their name to distinguish among relatives.
• The Fultons had at least ten children, seven or eight reaching adulthood.
• "She was a real person."
  (Holly, 10:06)

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4. Revolutionary Activities: The Daughters of Liberty

• After marriage, Sarah reportedly became involved with the Daughters of Liberty, a female parallel to the Sons of Liberty.
• Daughters of Liberty: Focused on letter writing, petitioning, boycotting British goods, and finding homemade alternatives.
  • "They organized boycotts of British goods, and they sought out locally made alternatives."
    (Tracy, 13:13)
  • "Spinning bees were already a thing, but especially in the northeast, they became a widespread act of collective resistance among colonial women..."
    (Holly, 13:58)
• Colonists' resistance was triggered by the Stamp Act (1765) and Townshend Acts (1767), especially taxes on tea.

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5. The Road to the Boston Tea Party

[19:18]

• While Sarah lived in Medford, her brother Nathaniel was a Boston carpenter. Supposedly, his home hosted patriots' gatherings and “codfish suppers.”
• According to Wild, significant Boston Tea Party planning took place in Nathaniel Bradley's carpenter shop.

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6. The Boston Tea Party: Context and Mythmaking

[22:36]

• Britain's Tea Act of 1773 allowed the East India Company to sell tea more cheaply (even than smuggled Dutch tea), but colonists still opposed the tax.
• Daughters of Liberty promoted “Liberty tea” (herbal alternatives).
• Tensions escalated when the Dartmouth, Eleanor, and Beaver reached Boston Harbor, their tea cargo unsellable and their owners forbidden to leave until customs paid.
• On December 16, 1773, after the governor again refused to let ships depart, the Tea Party occurred—men, some in “Indian” dress, boarded the ships and dumped tea into the harbor.
  • "There's a popular story that Samuel Adams gave a prearranged signal for the men to go down to the harbor to destroy the tea by saying, 'This meeting can do nothing more to save the country.' But this is another thing that didn't appear in writing until almost 100 years after the fact."
    (Holly, 23:21)

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7. The Role of Disguises and Indigenous Imagery

[24:10]

• Firsthand Tea Party accounts mention “Indian” disguises, tomahawks, clubs, and coal-dusted faces.
  • "I immediately dressed myself in the costume of an Indian... After having painted my face and hands with coal dust in the shop of a blacksmith..." – George Hughes (participant, written in 1834).
    (Tracy, 24:10-24:57)
• The choice of Mohawk vs. Narragansett as symbols reflects both colonial appropriation and later storytelling; the meaning, accuracy, and motivations behind these disguises remain ambiguous.
  • "The reason for adopting this dress also is not clearly documented anywhere. But a lot of colonists... already saw Indigenous people as something of a symbol representing ideas like autonomy, freedom, and unity."
    (Holly, 26:21)

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8. Sarah Bradlee Fulton’s Alleged Role

[27:50]

• According to Wild, the planning meeting for the Tea Party happened at the Bradlee home, and Sarah and her sister-in-law helped with the “disguises.”
  • A popular anecdote claims she "helped her brothers, quote, make a perfect disguise" and maybe even suggested the costume idea. (Tracy, 28:30-28:55)
• Myth or reality? Wearing “Indian” costume was already established by the time of the Tea Party; Sarah might have contributed, but the grander claims about originating the disguise are not supported by hard evidence.
  • "Even if she was the person who said, 'and also wear this.' Y'all should do this. Yeah, like that was something people were already doing."
    (Holly & Tracy, 29:09-29:15)
• Conflicting accounts exist over whether Sarah stayed at home to help the men clean up after or watched from the harbor’s edge.

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9. The Problem of Plot Holes

• A common element in the stories is a British spy peering in through the window. But the narrative is questionable: “All three of them seem to make it sound like this guy came and looked in the window and left unnoticed. So how did anyone know that he had been there? …This is what the Internet would call a plot hole.”
  (Tracy & Holly, 29:32-30:30)

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10. Legacy and Local Memory

• The Bradley (Fulton) house became a local landmark—the "Tea Party House”—before being torn down in 1898.
• Poet/playwright Grace Jewett Austin wrote a play commemorating Sarah in 1919.
• The Medford DAR chapter was named for Fulton, and her grave is marked by a stone from her home's old doorstep.

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11. Fulton's Revolutionary War Contributions

[35:43]

• Stories (mostly from family tradition and 19th-century sources):
  • Heard Paul Revere pass through Medford.
  • Organized local women to nurse at Bunker Hill battlefield hospitals—a story of “steady nerves.”
  • Allegedly delivered a message to George Washington, hiding it in her skirt hem; after the war, Washington is said to have visited her home and sipped rum punch with her.
    • "The little silver mounted ladle was dipped in the steaming concoction, and the first glass for Mrs. Fulton's new punch bowl was sipped by his Excellency. This was the proudest day of Sarah Fulton's life."
      (Tracy, 36:31)
  • Opposed British confiscation of firewood by physically confronting soldiers—"she took the oxen by the horns and turned them round. The men threatened to shoot her, but she shouted defiantly as she started her team, shoot away.”
    (Tracy, 37:59-38:54)
  • Marquis de Lafayette purportedly visited, drinking from the same punchbowl as Washington (now at Mount Vernon).

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12. Later Life and Honors

[39:38]

• Sarah and John Fulton lived in Medford; John died in 1790. Sarah died in her sleep in 1835 at age 95.
• The road passing her house became Fulton Street. The DAR placed a marker on her grave in 1900.
• Local authors Gill and Wild became prominent Medford historians and preservationists.
• The Royal House and Slave Quarters (connected to both the Revolutionary era and the history of slavery in Massachusetts) is now a museum and was discussed in depth in another episode.

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13. Reflection on Documentation and Historical Memory

• The episode closes by reminding listeners that most of these stories were solidified a century after the events, often told by descendants or historic society members seeking local or family heroes.
• The hosts stress the complexities around documentation, mythmaking, and women’s roles in Revolutionary history.

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Notable Quotes

• "There's no direct evidence to substantiate a lot of it and no corroborating accounts from the same time..."
  – Tracy B. Wilson (08:58)
• "I immediately dressed myself in the costume of an Indian... After having painted my face and hands with coal dust in the shop of a blacksmith..."
  – George Hughes as read by Tracy B. Wilson (24:10)
• "The reason for adopting this dress also is not clearly documented anywhere. But a lot of colonists... saw Indigenous people as something of a symbol representing ideas like autonomy, freedom, and unity."
  – Holly Fry (26:21)
• "There's some suggestion that a British soldier or spy stopped by the Bradley home... But this soldier or spy concluded that there was just some laundry or other housework being done and he moved along."
  – Tracy B. Wilson (29:32)
• "The men threatened to shoot her, but she shouted defiantly as she started her team, 'shoot away.' Astonishment, admiration, and amusement were too much for the regulars and they unconditionally surrendered."
  – Tracy B. Wilson quoting Helen T. Wild (38:11)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Main Introduction & Anniversaries: 02:49–03:39
• Fulton’s Place in Historical Memory: 03:39–06:43
• Sources & Their Reliability: 06:43–09:11
• Fulton's Early Life & Daughters of Liberty: 10:06–13:58
• Tea Act and Boston Tea Party Context: 19:18–24:10
• Disguises and Indigenous Representation: 24:10–27:50
• Fulton's Role & Myths: 27:50–30:56
• Aftermath and Revolutionary War Stories: 34:59–39:38
• Later Honors & Legacy: 39:38–42:44

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Conclusion

This episode offers a nuanced look at Sarah Bradlee Fulton’s legacy, sifting through historical fact, oral tradition, and the needs of community memory. While she is remembered as a heroine and “mother of the Boston Tea Party,” the line between legend and documentable history is thin—highlighting both the importance and the complexity of recognizing women’s roles in foundational American events. The hosts encourage listeners to appreciate Fulton’s story while understanding the limitations of the historical record.

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Listen to this episode for a fascinating blend of myth-busting, close reading of sources, and celebration of Revolutionary women—as well as a thoughtful discussion on the making (and unmaking) of local legends.

Transcript

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[Tracy B. Wilson]

Happy Saturday. Today is July 4, 2026, which is the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence here in the U.S. so for today's Saturday classic, I wanted to pick something at least related to the Revolutionary War. It is our episode about Sarah Bradley Fulton, who is sometimes called the mother of the Boston Tea Party. This was recorded in the run up to that 250th anniversary.

[Holly Fry]

This episode originally came out on December 13, 2023. Enjoy. Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartrad

[Hoda Kotb]

foreign.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy B. Wilson.

[Holly Fry]

And I'm Holly Fry.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

The 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party is right around the corner on December 16 this year, which is 2023. There have been various events related to this anniversary already leading up to a commemoration on the afternoon and evening of the 16th, and the plan for that is to culminate in a reenactment of dumping the British East India Company's tea into Boston Harbor. There's an episode on the Boston Tea Party in the archive from way back in 2008, when the show was only about six months old and was just almost a completely different podcast from what it is now. And while I definitely don't encourage people to take the name stuff you missed in history class completely literally, you can't really describe the Boston Tea Party as lesser known, at least not in the United States. At the same time, I wanted to do something connected to all of this, and eventually I landed on Sarah Bradley Fulton, who is sometimes called the mother of the Boston Tea Party. What we know about Sarah Bradley Fulton is kind of a series of anecdotes. They mostly trace back to the same sources, and those can't really be corroborated. We can't prove that they didn't happen, but we also can't prove that they did. So that is where we will start.

[Holly Fry]

The first written mention, at least that we know of connecting Sarah Bradley Fulton to the Boston Tea party is from 1873. It was written by Eliza M. Gill for the Boston Tea Party's centennial, and it was printed in the Boston Evening Traveler a day later. Gill was born in 1851 and had been a schoolteacher before going to work for the city of Medford, Massachusetts, and she was also active in local history she described the content of her letter as something, quote, imparted to me by descendants still living of men who took part in the Boston Tea Party.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

So this letter includes some of the same basic points as our main source of information on Sarah Bradley Fulton that was written by Helen t. Wild about 25 years later. There are a whole lot of, like recently written articles about Sarah Bradley Fulton that are point for point. This article. Wild was born in Medford in 1860. She also worked as a schoolteacher before eventually going to work for the city, first as a clerk and then as a tax assessor. She and Gill knew one another. Both of them held leadership roles in the Medford Historical Society. And both of them were among the founders of Medford's chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. That chapter was named for Sarah Bradley Fulton, and when that chapter was first founded, Wild was its secretary and Gill was historian.

[Holly Fry]

Wilde's piece on Fulton was written for the 1897 inauguration of the Sarah Bradley Fulton chapter of the DAR, and it was later printed in the Medford Historical Record and in American Monthly magazine. And just about everything that comes up in articles about Sarah Bradley Fulton today traces back to this one piece. Gill had not named the descendants still living that she talked to when writing her letter to the Boston Evening Traveler, other than saying that it was one of the descendants of Sarah's husband, John. And Wild doesn't name her sources in her piece either. But Fulton's grandson, also named John Fulton, had been profiled by the Boston Globe the year before, and he told some similar stories about his grandmother.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

As a side note, this Boston Globe article includes a three paragraph quotation that has presented as though it is in Sarah Bradley Fulton's own voice and words. It's not totally clear whether this was something she actually said or wrote, or if this quotation was more like a literary device. That passage is going to come up again later. This article also describes John Fulton as walking, quote, arm in arm with a modern analyst. So could that modern analyst have been Wild or Gil or someone else completely different? Who can say? We don't really know.

[Holly Fry]

And just to be clear, that's not analyst, like someone who analyzes things. It's analyst annal, like someone who is involved in the annals of history.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Right.

[Holly Fry]

There are some discrepancies between what Eliza M. Gill wrote and Helen T. Wilde's piece a couple of decades later. Like according to Gill's letter, Sarah Bradley and John Fulton were not married yet when the Boston Tea Party happened. But according to Wilde, they were. Wild is Correct. We also don't really know the explanation for the discrepancies, like if the information came from different people or if Wild and Gill each talked to the same person and their recollection changed over the years, or if new documentation was unearthed or some other possibility.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Regardless, what we're talking about today was definitely part of local lore in Medford and Fulton family lore by the mid to late 19th century. But there's no direct evidence to substantiate a lot of it and no corroborating accounts from the same time. Like there were no friends of Sarah Bradley Fulton who wrote about her in their diary that we have unearthed so far to kind of back up these stories. Although some of the Bradleys were documented as being actively involved with the colonists uprising, there are no written mentions of Sarah Bradley Fulton or her family members in connection to the Boston Tea Party until about a hundred years after the fact. Her grandson John was in his 30s when she died and he did know her, but that was also decades after the Boston Tea Party happened. And then the Boston Globe profile and Wild's piece for the D. Those are written another 60 more years or so after her death. There are also some details that seem maybe a little questionable. We will talk about them.

[Holly Fry]

We do know that Sarah Bradley Fulton was a real person. She was born Sarah Bradley on December 24, 1740 in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Her birth was registered with the town of Dorchester, although her last name in the registry is spelled Bradley, B R A D L E Y instead of B R A D L E E. Allegedly, this spelling change was intentional because there were so many Bradleys that it was getting hard to keep up with who was related to who. At the time, Dorchester was its own town, but it was annexed by the city of Boston in 1870.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

In 1762. So skipping ahead quite a bit, Sarah Bradley married John Fulton. Later they moved to Medford where they lived for the rest of their lives. They had at least 10 children together, with seven or eight of them surviving to adulthood. I found slightly different names and counts among different sources.

[Holly Fry]

A few years after getting married, Sarah Bradley Fulton reportedly became active in the Daughters of Liberty. As with the more widely known Sons of Liberty, the origins of the Daughters of Liberty are pretty murky. It also seems like the name Daughters of Liberty was used for established organizations as well as more broadly for women who were, in one way or another, working toward the same overall goals, that is resisting British taxation and advocating for the rights and freedoms of Britain's colonies in North America.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

This is another case where we don't have specific documentation of what she was doing. But both the Sons and Daughters of Liberty started to coalesce in 1765 in response to the Stamp Act. This was a tax on legal documents and printed materials that Parliament passed in the wake of the Seven years War as a way for Britain to bring in more revenue. All such documents had to be stamped as proof that the tax had been paid. And a lot of people in the colonies objected to this tax, both because of the tax itself and because the colonies did not have direct representation in the Parliament that had passed it. So in other words, no taxation without representation.

[Holly Fry]

In the wake of protests and unrest and various threats against tax collectors and other British officials, Parliament repealed the stamp act in 1767, while stressing that it did have the right to tax the colonies. Soon after, Parliament passed another set of acts known as the Townshend Acts. One of the Townsend acts was the Revenue act, which established duties on various goods, including lead, glass, paper, paint and tea. Another of the acts, the Indemnity act, was passed a few days later and lowered the duty on the East India Company's tea imports into England and also refunded duties on tea that was then exported to the American colonies or to Ireland. This was really an effort to try to save the East India Company from financial collapse. Smugglers were bringing a lot of Dutch East India Company tea into the colonies, which could be sold much cheaper than British East India Company tea with all its duties in place.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

People were still not happy about these taxes, though. While the Sons of Liberty were known for public and sometimes destructive protests like hanging officials in effigy and eventually the destruction of the tea that later became known as the Boston Tea Party. The Daughters of Liberty were not usually out in the streets demonstrating. Instead, they wrote letters and gathered signatures. They organized boycotts of British goods, and they sought out locally made alternatives. When the Sons of Liberty organized non importation associations in which merchants would agree not to import British goods, the Daughters of Liberty worked on ways to deal with all the resulting shortages.

[Holly Fry]

Linen and cloth were among the goods that merchants refused to import from Britain. So the Daughters of Liberty's part in this included a lot of spinning. Spinning bees were already a thing, but especially in the northeast, they became a widespread act of collective resistance among colonial women, as did wearing homespun like. Here's a description from the Boston Chronicle in 1766. Quote on the fourth instant, 18 Daughters of Liberty young ladies of good reputation assembled at the house of Dr. Ephraim Bowen in this town in consequence of an invitation of that gentleman who had discovered a laudable zeal for the introducing home manufacturers. There they exhibited a fine example of industry by spinning from sunrise until dark, and displayed a spirit for saving their sinking country, rarely to be found among persons of more age and experience.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

In the wake of all of this, the value of imports from Britain into the colonies dropped into enormously between 1767 and 1768. Although this drop was largely focused in the north in terms of British imports, things didn't really change all that much in the south at all, with the

[Holly Fry]

exception of the tax on tea. The Townshend Act's taxes were repealed in 1770. We're going to come back to the Tea and the Boston Tea Party after we have a sponsor break.

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app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. While Sarah Bradley Fulton and her husband John established their home in Medford, which is northwest of Boston on the mystic river, her brother, Nathaniel Bradley continued to live in Boston. He was a carpenter and a craftsman, and according to Helen T. Wild's account, friends and neighbors gathered at his home at the corner of Hollis and Tremont streets for codfish suppers on Saturday nights. In her words, his Carpenter, shop and kitchen became, quote, meeting places for Boston's most devoted patriots.

[Holly Fry]

And again, according to Wilde's account, the Bradley home in Boston was one of the places where men prepared for the Boston Tea Party. Although that name was not coined until decades after it happened. The Boston Tea Party circled back to Britain's efforts to keep the British East India Company afloat in terms of both revenue and offloading. Enormous amounts of tea that were sitting in London warehouses unsold. Enormous, as in about 17 million pounds of unsold tea. Parliament passed the Tea act on May 10, 1773, which gave the British East India Company the right to ship tea directly to the colonies, rather than having to ship it to Britain first. The Company was also allowed to employ its own agents to sell tea rather than going through colonial merchants, since it was no longer having to ship tea to England and pay a duty on it there. This meant the British East India Company could start selling tea in the colonies for less than the price of smuggled Dutch tea.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

But to a lot of people in the colonies, access to cheaper tea was not what mattered. It was that tax they would be paying if they bought it. Although the Townshendacht's tax on tea had still been in place between 1770 and 1773, and there were still a lot of people in the colonies who refused to drink tea during those years, the Tea act really revived people's anger and frustration over this issue. A lot of people in the colonies really doubled down on their boycott of tea. And the Daughters of Liberty promoted alternatives, sometimes called Liberty tea, including mint, raspberry leaf and various herbs and roots. Ships arriving in American ports were met by angry mobs and forced to leave, still laden their tea.

[Holly Fry]

On November 28, 1773, a ship called the Dartmouth arrived in Boston. The Eleanor arrived on December 2nd and the Beaver on December 15th. Each of these ships carried more than 100 chests of East India Company tea. But the ships themselves were owned by local merchants. Newspapers had started reporting on shipments of tea that were headed for the colonies in October. So the Sons of Liberty had been holding public meetings on the issue for weeks before these ships started arriving at locations including the Liberty Tree, near Boston Common and Faneuil Hall. These meetings grew after the Dartmouth arrived, with organizers moving to the Old South Meeting House to accommodate the larger crowd.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

So people like the Sons of Liberty demanded that these ships be sent back to England. But the Collector of Customs refused to let them leave the harbor without the duties being paid on the tea. Of course, the people who owned these ships did not want to pay a duty on a product that could not be unloaded or sold. Sold. While officials in other port cities had allowed ships carrying tea to return to England, Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor Thomas Hutchinson insisted that the ships remain in the port until the tea was unloaded, and he stationed two gunships at the harbor to prevent their departure. He was not interested in deescalating the situation at all.

[Holly Fry]

The last of a long series of public meetings was held at the Old south meeting house on December 16, 1773. That day the governor was once again asked if the ships could be sent back to England, and he once again refused. There's a little bit of fuzziness regarding the sequence of events from here. There's a popular story that Samuel Adams gave a prearranged signal for the men to go down to the harbor to destroy the tea by saying, this meeting can do nothing more to save the country. But this is another thing that didn't appear in writing until almost 100 years after the fact. Regardless, shortly after getting this last update on the governor's refusal, a group of men boarded the Dartmouth, the Eleanor and the Beaver, broke open the more than 300 crates of tea they were carrying, and dumped the contents into the harbor.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

At least some of these men were dressed in costumes meant to resemble indigenous people. Here's an account from participant George hughes written in 1834. So more than 60 years after this event occurred. Quote, it was now evening and I immediately dressed myself in the costume of an Indian equipped with a small hatchet which I and my associates denominated the tomahawk with which and a club. After having painted my face and hands with coal dust in the shop of a blacksmith, I repaired to Griffin's Wharf, where the ships lay that contained the tea. When I first appeared in the street after being thus disguised, I fell in with many who were dressed, equipped and painted as I was, and who fell in with me and marched in order to the place of our destination.

[Holly Fry]

There's really no first hand documentation about why specifically at least some of the men were in these costumes, and it's also not clear what exactly those costumes entailed. Some participants, firsthand accounts, used generic words like Indian or Indian dress, including that of Joshua Wyeth, who wrote the first published account from a participant more than 50 years later. One Boston news report from a couple of days after the event describes the men as dressed as, quote, Mohawks or Indians, while another references Indians from Narragansett. And still other accounts mention that at least some of the men were not in Indigenous dress at all.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

We also don't definitively know why the Mohawk and the Narragansett were the nations that were specifically named in various news reports and other accounts. But these are not the same Indigenous nation. The Mohawk or the Kinnikinaka are one of the six nations of the Haudenosaunee. They're an Iroquoisian speaking people. Their ancestral homeland is in what's now eastern New York State as well as adjacent parts of Canada and Vermont. The Narragansett are an Algonquian speaking people whose ancestral homeland is in what's now Rhode Island. So these are two different nations from two different language groups whose homelands are hundreds of miles apart. Neither of them are among the nations whose homelands are near what's now Boston.

[Holly Fry]

The reason for adopting this dress also is not clearly documented anywhere. But a lot of colonists, particularly colonists who were aligned with groups like the Sons of Liberty, already saw Indigenous people as something of a symbol representing ideas like autonomy, freedom and unity. People had worn so called Indian dress at other protests against British policies. Prior to the Boston Tea Party in New York, broadsides signed the Mohawks had been circulating warning people against assisting with the landing of ships carrying British tea. The destruction of the tea was also a symbolic protest. And dressing as Native Americans or in clothing inspired by Indigenous dress was symbolic of the men's connection to America, not to Britain.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

So this may have been meant as a basic disguise or to try to deflect suspicion away from the colonists. But Indigenous imagery already had these additional layers of meaning. And there's obviously also some irony here. Colonists were appropriating Indigenous imagery as an emblem of ideals like freedom, while also waging war against Indigenous nations and violating treaties and generally viewing Indigenous peoples as savage and inferior. Also, the idea that these men were specifically dressed as Mohawk rather than more generically Indian or possibly Narragansett like that doesn't seem to have really solidified until decades later.

[Holly Fry]

Okay, so to get back to Sarah Bradley Fulton, according to Wilde's account, some of the men who participated in the destruction of the tea met and prepared at her brother Nathaniel Bradley's carpenter shop. Fulton and her sister in law, who is just referred to as Mrs. Bradley in Surviving accounts, were there to help. This is also one of the discrepancies between Wild and Gill. Eliza M. Gill's letter says this happened at the home of Bradley's father, not her brother. The letter also says that John Fulton and four Bradley brothers, Nathaniel, Josiah, David and Thomas, were all involved.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

That passage from the Boston Globe that reads like a quote from her says that Sarah Bradley Fulton helped her brothers, quote, make a perfect disguise. And some sources describe Fulton as having been the one to come up with the whole idea that the Sons of Liberty should dress like indigenous men. It's really not clear who first gave her the credit for doing that. But as we just established, so called Indian dress had already become part of the culture of protest among the colonists, especially in the Northeast. And doing this already had some layers of symbolic meaning. So even if she was the person

[Holly Fry]

who said, and also wear this.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Y' all should do this. Yeah, like that was something people were already doing.

[Holly Fry]

The accounts we have of Sarah Bradley Fulton's involvement vary a little bit. Either she stayed behind to keep the water hot so the men could remove whatever they'd put on their faces when they returned, or she went down to the harbor to watch from a distance and then left before the men did to get everything ready.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

And there's some suggestion that a British soldier or spy stopped by the Bradley home at some point during the evening, either while Fulton was there with her sister in law, or after the men had come back and removed their costumes. But this soldier or spy concluded that there was just some laundry or other housework being done and he moved along. Wild's account describes it this way. Quote, nathaniel Bradley's principles were well known. And a spy, hoping to find some proof against him, peered in at the kitchen window, but saw these two women moving about so quietly and naturally that he passed on little dreaming what was really in progress there. This is the one of the things that, like, doesn't really make sense, though. Gil's letter and the Boston Globe profile mentioned this as well. All three of them seem to make it sound like this guy came and looked in the window and left unnoticed. So how did anyone know that he had been there?

[Holly Fry]

This is what the Internet would call a plot hole. Regardless of all that, toward the end of the 19th century, in the era when Wilde and Gill were writing about Sarah Bradley Fulton, the Bradley home at the corner of Tremont and Hollis became known as the Tea Party House. There were even photo postcards of it available for sale, which is what people had to content themselves with after the house was torn down in 1898.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

We will talk about Sarah Bradley Fulton's life after the Boston Tea Party after a sponsor break.

[Mangesha Teegular]

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[Hoda Kotb]

No, I don't need to.

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[Tracy B. Wilson]

Cancel anytime visit t mobile.com I turned off news altogether.

[Mangesha Teegular]

I hate to say it, but I

[Holly Fry]

don't trust much of anything.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

It's the rage bait. It feels like it's trying to divide people.

[Mangesha Teegular]

We got clear facts. Maybe we can calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the Facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News Reporting for America. The Second World War is the largest event in human history. A 20 part documentary series with Tom Hanks. No part of the globe was untouched, no life unchanged. Experience the ultimate account of World War II. Every single person has story. These are the stories that make us who we are. World War II with Tom Hanks new episode Monday at 8. Part of history honors 250 only on the history Channel.

[Hoda Kotb]

Hey, I'm Hoda Kotb, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb. Okay, if you know me, you know this. I'm always searching for inspiration, for support and useful tools to help maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover all of that together. We're going to have these meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges that she never saw coming.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartum depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety.

[Hoda Kotb]

Olympic champ Shawn Johnson revealed why she had been no choice but to be a gymnast.

[Holly Fry]

There was something about gymnastics that was intoxicating to me.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

It's given me a belief that we all have one of those treasures inside of us. We just have to find it.

[Hoda Kotb]

Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

American soccer is exploding.

[Mangesha Teegular]

The knockout rounds are here.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

The US Won their group and now every match is win or go home. Score

[Mangesha Teegular]

usa. I'm Tapp Ramos.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

And I'm Tom Boger. On our podcast, Inside American Soccer, we'll talk about the real storylines.

[Mangesha Teegular]

I'm not worried about Pulisic. I'm not worried about Baligan. I'm not worried about McKinney. My only concern is what happens in the back.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

And give you the truth about the

[Mangesha Teegular]

U.S. national team from inside the program. It wouldn't be a huge surprise if our team ends up in the quarterfinals or potentially a great run into the semifinals. Whether you're a lifelong fan or this is your first World cup, we've got you coming usa. Listen Inside American Soccer with Tom Boger and Tav ramos on the iHeartRadio app,

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Tensions between Britain and its colonies in the Americas had been growing for years before the Boston Tea Party, which again was not called that until much later, and those tensions escalated really dramatically in its aftermath. Tea protests continued in Massachusetts and other colonies. In 1774, Parliament passed a set of laws that came to be known as the Intolerable act. As one of several punitive measures. The Revolutionary War began with the battles of Lexington and Concord in April of 1775.

[Holly Fry]

According to Helen T. Wild's account of Sarah Bradley Fulton's life, she was actively involved in the war. Hearing Paul Revere's ride to raise the alarm as he passed through Medford on April 18, he allegedly made a little pit stop for some Medford rumors. On June 17, the Medford militia fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill, across the Charles river from Boston and down the mystic river from Medford. Fulton organized local women to work as nurses in a field hospital that was set up in an open area by Wade's Tavern. In Wild's words, quote among them, the steady nerves of Sarah Fulton made her a leader. One poor fellow had a bullet in his cheek and she removed it. She almost forgot the circumstance until years after he came to thank her for her service.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

A year later, Major John Brooks of Medford needed a message delivered to General George Washington at the front and asked Fulton's husband to do it. She went herself instead, and according to a story passed down in her family, as recorded by a great, great, great great granddaughter, Fulton concealed the message in the hem of her skirt. And then after the war, Washington came to thank her in person for delivering that message again, in Wild's words. Quote, it is said that according to the fashion of the day, John Fulton on this occasion brewed a potation whose chief ingredient was the far famed product of the town. The little silver mounted ladle was dipped in the steaming concoction, and the first glass for Mrs. Fulton's new punch bowl was sipped by his Excellency. This was the proudest day of Sarah Fulton's life. The chair in which he sat and the punch bowl and ladle were always sacred and are still treasured by her descendants.

[Holly Fry]

That far famed product of the town mentioned in Wilde's account was that rum that was allegedly enough of a draw to entice Paul Revere to stop for some while warning people of an advancing army. Distilling rum was also a major part of the New England economy and one of the ways it was interconnected with slavery. The sugar that was used to make the molasses that was turned into rum in New England distilleries was grown and processed at slave labor camps on islands in the Caribbean.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

There's also a story about the siege of Boston. A load of firewood was expected to come through Medford, or maybe was being harvested at one of Medford's woodlots, and it was meant for Revolutionary troops in Cambridge. Knowing that this wood would likely be confiscated by the British, Fulton sent her husband to buy it, hoping that the British soldiers would respect it as his private property. This didn't work out and the soldiers confiscated it anyway. This is one of the things I have some questions about, like how they knew about this wood and why they thought that buying it would leave it untouched because, you know, the British confiscating property from people was kind of a thing, in Wilde's words. Quote, when his wife heard the story, she flung on a shawl and went in pursuit, overtaking the party. She took the oxen by the horns and turned them round. The men threatened to shoot her, but she shouted defiantly as she started her team shoot away. Astonishment, admiration and amusement were too much for the regulars and they unconditionally surrendered. It's a delightful story, even though there's some question marks.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, for sure. At some point after the war, the Marquis de Lafayette reportedly visited the Fulton home And he was seated in the same chair and served from the same punchbowl bowl as George Washington had been years before. In Wild's account, the chair, punch bowl, and ladle were always sacred. The punch bowl was donated to Mount Vernon in Fulton's memory in 2006. Some accounts describe this punch bowl as silver, but the one that was donated to Mount Vernon is porcelain.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

After the war, the Fultons bought a house on the road that ran from Medford north to Stoneham. John Fulton died on February 9, 1790, when Sarah was 49. Decades later, on November 9, 1835, Sarah Bradley Fulton died in her sleep at the age of 95, and she was buried at Salem Street Cemetery in Medford. At the first town meeting to be held after her death, the road she had lived on was renamed Fulton street in her honor.

[Holly Fry]

As we said at the top of the show, the Medford Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution was named for Sarah Bradley Fulton when it was established. The DAR placed a marker at Fulton's burial site in 1900 made from the stone that had served as the doorstop at her Medford home. It reads, Sarah Bradley Fulton, 1740-1835 Heroine of the Revolution Created by the Sarah Bradley Fulton Chapter of the DAR 1900

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Poet and playwright Grace Jewett Austin wrote a play called Sarah Bradley Fulton Patriot A colonial drama in three acts in 1919. Austin was born in New Hampshire, but at this time was living in Bloomington, Illinois, and she wrote this play under the auspices of the Letitia Green Stevenson Chapter of the dar. Letitia Green Stevenson was the wife of Adelaide Stevenson, vice president under Grover Cleveland, and she was one of the founders of that Bloomington chapter.

[Holly Fry]

To circle back on the authors of those two sources of information on Sarah Bradley Fulton that we've been talking about. Eliza M. Gill lived in her family's home in Medford for more than 60 years before eventually moving to Waltham, Massachusetts toward the end of her life. She died there on February 10, 1923, at the age of 71. In addition to her work with the DAR and the Medford Historical Society, she was also a member of the New England Historical and Genealogical Society, also of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquity.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Helen T. Wilde died in 1948 at the age of 88. In addition to her work that we've already talked about, Wilde was part of the Medford DAR's efforts to purchase and restore a property known as Royal House. To that end, she helped establish the Royal house Association in 1906. Today, Royal House is a museum called the Royal House and Slave quarters, which we visited, Holly and I, back in 2016.

[Holly Fry]

We talked more about this house and its history in our episode Belinda Sutton's post Enslavement Petitions. We haven't talked very much about slavery in today's episode, but enslaved people in Massachusetts were advocating for their own liberation before and during the Revolutionary War, and it was through that advocacy that the Supreme Judicial Court effectively abolished slavery in Massachusetts in 1783. And during and after the war, Belinda Sutton, who was enslaved at Royal House, petitioned to be paid for her years of labor while she was enslaved by the Royals. We are going to run our episode on this as our next Saturday classic.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah, Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. If you'd like to send us a note, our email address is history [e-mail] and you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Holly Fry]

Living with a rare autoimmune condition brings uncertainty, but it can also create community. In season six of Untold Life with a severe autoimmune condition, they go beyond MG and CIDP as host Martine Hackett welcomes stories from other conditions like myosit Igan into the conversation. Untold Stories is produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenics. Listen to Untold life with a severe autoimmune condition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Mangesha Teegular]

The Second World War is the largest event in human history. A 20 part documentary series with Tom Hanks. No part of the globe was untouched, no life unchanged. Experience the ultimate account of World War II. Every single person had a story. These are the stories that make us who we are. World War II with Tom Hanks new episode Monday at 8 part of History honors 250 only on the History Channel.

[Hoda Kotb]

Joy is essential and it's also elusive. But now there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joy existence. Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me how to kotbi if you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting and moving on air chats. Listen to Joy 101 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb is presented by CBS.

[Mangesha Teegular]

My husband is at a spa resort

[Hoda Kotb]

with his mistress right now and I'm calling the hotel to confront them both.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Wait a minute, Dakota. She's calling the hotel while they're checked in.

[Hoda Kotb]

Yeah, that's right, Sophia. And it gets worse. It's vacate to vacation week on the OK Storytime podcast where she caught him buying gifts on Amazon and then taped a 10 page letter inside his luggage before he flew out so she planted

[Tracy B. Wilson]

evidence before he even took off.

[Hoda Kotb]

And spoiler Sophia. Two years later, karma hits so hard he's calling his ex wife in tears saying about his mistress what a mistake that was.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

To find out what happened, listen to

[Hoda Kotb]

the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio

[Tracy B. Wilson]

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Mangesha Teegular]

I'm Mangesha Teegular and I'm back with a new season of my podcast Skyline Drive. This time I talk to scientists, biopunks, curmudgeons, Blue zoners, super seniors, and Goa's top cryotherapy lab to try to understand this obsession with living forever and what it means for all of us. And I get into a bit of trouble along the way.

[Hoda Kotb]

I'd say probably start bone smashing.

[Mangesha Teegular]

That doesn't work.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Make it look more defined.

[Hoda Kotb]

They say it works.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

I don't know.

[Mangesha Teegular]

Listen to Skyline Drive, how to Live Forever on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.