On the night of Dec. 16, 1773, the 19-year-old Scottish immigrant donned his best Native American disguise. The Boston Tea Party was about to begin.
James Swan (1754–1830) was born in Fifeshire, Scotland, and moved to Massachusetts as a child. Certainly, he didn’t arrive with revolutionary intentions, but the winds of revolution were blowing shortly after he arrived. During his early adolescent years, the colonists were protesting British Parliament’s taxation acts. As an apprentice, he worked in the heart of downtown Boston near Faneuil Hall, where many of the colonial debates took place.
