In response to the tea tax, the Patriots in New York and Philadelphia asked that the ships carrying the tea turn around and head back for England. In Charleston, the tea was landed but then locked in a warehouse and never sold. Boston was a different story altogether.
By the time all of this was going on, the governor of Massachusetts (Thomas Hutchinson) was becoming tired of the actions of the Patriots. Hutchinson would not stand aside like the other colonial governors and allow the colonists to negotiate what to do with the tea. If he did, and the tea returned to England then surely the Tea Tax would have been repealed and no new troops would have been sent to the colonies so soon after the Boston Massacre.
Three ships arrived in Boston Harbor, the Dartmouth, the Eleanor and the Beaver, Hutchinson ordered that the harbor be sealed off allowing no ship to return to Britain. On the afternoon of December 16th a meeting of the Bostonians took place to decide what to do. Thousands of colonists showed up for the meeting, most of them standing in the rain outside. Upon learning that the British had closed the harbor, Samuel Adams rose and declared 'This meeting can do nothing more to save the country'. This was the signal to the patriots outside.
A group from the Sons of Liberty dressed as Mohawk Indians appeared at the doors of the assembly hall and then proceeded to the docks. The "Mohawks" marched to Griffin's Wharf boarded the 3 ships, broke open the tea chests and poured 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. 35,000 pounds of tea were dumped into the water that night. Following Boston's lead, many towns followed suit and destroyed the tea in their warehouses and in the boats in their harbors.
