Sorting Out Details about William Hendley

On 23 Feb 1830, the Rhode-Island American reported this death:

In Waldoborough, (Me) Mr William Hendley, formerly of Roxbury, Mass. aged 82. He was a revolutionary pensioner, and present at the destruction of the Tea in Boston Harbour.

That report may have come from another newspaper closer to Maine. The same sentence appeared in several other American newspapers afterwards.

According to the 11 Nov 1814 Dedham Gazette, Mary Hendley, wife of William, had died in Roxbury at age 63. The veteran was then in his seventies. He might have moved north to Maine to live with children or relatives.

The U.S. Revolutionary War Pension database turns up only one William Hendley from Massachusetts. His application stated that he had enlisted as a private soldier on 24 Mar 1777 at Stoughton in the 7th Massachusetts Regiment and served for three years under Col. Ichabod Alden and Col. John Brooks. His first company commander was Capt. William Patrick, killed at Cobleskill, New York. In 1780 Hendley was discharged at West Point as a corporal.

Hendley’s file offers almost no other information except that in 1820 he identified himself as a “Mariner,” and that he made his application at the court in Boston.

Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors, based on state records, lists a William Hendley/Hendly with the same service details. It also lists other soldiers with the same or similar names from Boston and Scituate.

When William Hendley of Waldoborough died, American newspapers were starting to lift the curtain on who had destroyed the East India Company tea in December 1773. Editors had kept the secret until the 1820s, especially inside Boston itself. But as time passed, and veterans passed on, the old custom faded. Unfortunately, Hendley died too early for anyone to interview him in depth about the Tea Party and what role he’d played.

The 1835 book Traits of the Tea Party even included an appendix of men who had participated in the event, the first such list published. William Hendley was on it, possibly because of the newspaper death notice.

Decades later, Francis Drake sought to profile all the men and boys at the Boston Tea Party in his book Tea Leaves (1884). About Hendley he wrote:

A Revolutionary pensioner, formerly of Roxbury, died at Waldoborough, Me., in February, 1830; aged eighty-two. He was a mason, on Newbury Street, Boston, in 1796.

The first sentence was based on the obituary, the second on the 1796 Boston directory, which listed:

Henly, William, mason, Sweetser’s buildings, Newbury Street.

However, it’s quite possible that William Henly, Boston mason, wasn’t William Hendley, Roxbury mariner who would die in Maine. The 14 June 1804 Boston Gazette reported that “Mr. William Henly, aged 44,” had died in town “after a lingering illness.” The mason might have been one of the other veterans listed in Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors; if so, he didn’t live long enough to apply for a pension.

Furthermore, at some point Drake’s entry about Hendley was misread. He was changed from a mason to a Freemason.

Thus, on looking at the earliest sources of information about this man, I sort out:

• William Hendley, “present” at the Tea Party, soldier in the Continental Army for three years, lived in Roxbury, applied for a U.S. pension, moved to Maine, and died in 1830.
• William Henly, possibly in the army, mason in Boston in 1796, possibly died in 1804.
• “William Hendley, mason,” an amalgam of these two men and later fictitiously a Freemason.