The first recorded incident of tarring and…
January 1774 CE
The first recorded incident of tarring and feathering in America had occurred in 1766, when Captain William Smith had been tarred, feathered, and dumped into the harbor of Norfolk, Virginia, by a mob that included the town's Mayor.
He had been picked up by a vessel just as his strength was giving out.
He survived, and was later quoted as saying that "...[they] dawbed my body and face all over with tar and afterwards threw feathers on me."
As will be the case with most other tar-and-feathers victims in the following decade, Smith had been suspected of informing on smugglers to the British Customs service.
The punishment had appeared in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1767, when mobs avenged themselves on low-level employees of the Customs service with tar and feathers.
In October 1769, a mob in Boston had attacked a customs service sailor the same way, and a few similar attacks have followed.
John Malcolm, a Bostonian who works for the British customs service, is known as a hard-line Loyalist, a staunch supporter of royal authority.
As a Loyalist, he has often faced abuse and provocation from Boston's Patriots, the critics of British authority.
One such verbal confrontation with Patriot shoemaker George Hewes thrusts Malcolm into the spotlight.
Hewes has often provoked Malcolm by “hooting at him in the streets.” On January 25, 1774, according to the account in the Massachusetts Gazette, Hewes sees Malcolm threatening to strike a boy with his cane.
When Hewes intervenes to stop Malcolm, the two begin insulting each other, after which Malcolm strikes Hewes hard on the forehead with the cane.
After receiving treatment from the well-known Patriot doctor, Joseph Warren, Hewes goes to a magistrate’s office to get a warrant for John Malcolm’s arrest.
That night, a mob seizes Malcolm in his house and drags him into King Street, where, over the objections of Hewes, he is covered with tar and feathers and scalding hot tea poured down his throat.
They then take him to the Liberty Tree, where they first threaten to hang him and then threaten to cut off his ears if he does not apologize for his behavior and renounce his customs commission.
Malcolm relents and is sent home.
The event is reported in newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic.
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