The Boston Coffee Riot of 1777: When Women Seized a Hoarder’s Coffee

Most people know about the Boston Tea Party. Far fewer know that four years later, Boston had a coffee confrontation of its own. The Boston coffee riot of 1777 took place around July 24, when a crowd of women marched on the warehouse of a wealthy merchant accused of hoarding coffee to push up its price. When he refused to sell at a fair rate or hand over his keys, they hoisted him into a cart, took the keys, and drove off with his coffee while a crowd of men looked on.

We know the story mainly because Abigail Adams described it in a letter to her husband John a few days later. Here is what the sources actually say, and what they do not.

Key takeaways

• The incident happened in Boston around July 24, 1777, during wartime shortages of sugar and coffee.
• The merchant was Thomas Boylston, a rich bachelor and a first cousin of John Adams’s mother.
• Abigail Adams described the event in a letter dated July 30, 1777; a letter written the day after the event helps date it.
• It was one of more than 30 food riots in the colonies between 1776 and 1779, many led by women.
• The popular name “Boston Coffee Party” is a later label, not one used at the time.

In this article

1. Why coffee was scarce in 1777
2. What happened in the Boston coffee riot of 1777
3. Two accounts, two angles
4. Part of a wider wave of food riots
5. Why the story still matters
6. FAQ

Why coffee was scarce in Boston in 1777

By the summer of 1777 the Revolutionary War was in its third year. Trade with the West Indies, where much of the colonies’ sugar and coffee came from, had been badly disrupted. Both the British and Continental armies requisitioned food, and paper money was losing value. With so many men away at war, women were running households, farms and small shops, and they felt every price rise directly.

Coffee had also taken on a political flavor. After the 1773 tea protests, drinking coffee instead of tea became a patriotic habit for many Americans (we tell that part of the story in why Americans drink coffee). So when a merchant appeared to be sitting on a supply of coffee waiting for prices to climb, it looked to many neighbors less like business and more like profiteering at the community’s expense.

What happened in the Boston coffee riot of 1777

Abigail Adams, writing on July 30, 1777, reported that sugar and coffee were scarce and that rumor had an “eminent, wealthy, stingy Merchant” holding a hogshead of coffee in his store. According to her letter, he would not sell it to the town’s committee for less than six shillings a pound.

Her account continues in vivid detail. A group of women, she says a hundred or more, arrived with a cart and trucks and demanded the keys to the warehouse. When he refused, one of them grabbed him by the neck and put him in the cart. He gave up the keys; the women tipped the cart and dropped him out, opened the warehouse, hoisted the coffee out themselves, loaded it into their trucks and drove away. A large crowd of men, she adds, watched in silent amazement. She passed on a rumor that he had also been spanked, then said she did not believe it.

Who was the merchant?

The editors of the Adams Papers identify him as Thomas Boylston, a rich Boston merchant known for being miserly, unmarried and, awkwardly, a first cousin of John Adams’s mother. Abigail did not name him in her letter, but the description and other records leave little doubt.

Timeline

Two accounts, two angles

Abigail Adams was not there herself; she was reporting what she had heard. A second, more sober account helps. The Adams Papers editors quote a letter from John Scollay, a Bostonian, written on July 25, 1777. He describes the event as happening the day before, which is how historians date it to about July 24.

Read together, the two letters suggest something more organized than a random mob: a group of respectable townswomen who believed the merchant was breaking an unwritten rule of fair dealing in wartime, and who intended to pay a price they considered just. Scollay also noted that the town voted to raise £8,000 by subscription to buy goods and resell them at cost, a sign that officials were trying to tackle the shortage too.

Is it the “Boston Coffee Party”?

You will often see the event called the Boston Coffee Party, a nod to the Tea Party. It is a handy modern nickname, but neither Abigail Adams nor Scollay used it. Calling it a coffee riot or a food riot is closer to how historians describe it.

Part of a wider wave of food riots

Boston was not unusual. Historians have counted more than 30 food riots across the colonies between 1776 and 1779, in which crowds confronted merchants accused of hoarding or overcharging for coffee, tea, sugar or flour. Women led many of them. Historian Barbara Clark Smith studied these crowd actions closely, and Gary Nash has described the women involved as arbiters of what was fair.

• East Hartford, Connecticut, August 1777: about 20 women and 3 men took 218 pounds of sugar from a merchant’s store.
• Beverly, Massachusetts, November 1777: about 60 women marched to a warehouse of sugar after merchants refused paper money; the sugar was eventually sold for that currency.
• Boston itself saw a string of price confrontations after the British evacuation in 1776.

The pattern is consistent: ordinary households, usually run by women while men served, enforcing their own idea of a fair price when the market and the authorities seemed to fail them.

Why the Boston coffee riot still matters

The story is often told as a funny anecdote about a miser in a cart. It is more interesting than that. It shows how central coffee had already become to everyday American life by the 1770s, central enough that its price was a matter of public justice. It also offers a rare, well-documented glimpse of women acting collectively and publicly at a time when they had no vote and little formal political voice.

Coffee and public life have long been linked, from the London coffeehouses where news and politics were argued over a penny cup to the role coffee played in later American wars, told in our piece on coffee in the Civil War.

No one has to storm a warehouse for good coffee today. If you want a cup worth reading history over, our Latin American Blend offers nutty, cocoa-tinged depth, and the Breakfast Blend is a smooth, balanced medium roast. Both are roasted 1 to 5 days before they reach you.

Boston coffee riot FAQ

When did the Boston coffee riot happen?

Around July 24, 1777. A letter from John Scollay dated July 25 calls it “yesterday,” and Abigail Adams wrote about it on July 30.

Who was the merchant in the Boston coffee riot?

Thomas Boylston, a wealthy, famously tight-fisted Boston merchant and bachelor, who was a first cousin of John Adams’s mother.

How many women took part?

Abigail Adams wrote that a hundred or more women were involved, adding that some said more. Exact numbers are not recorded.

Did the women steal the coffee?

They took it by force, but according to Scollay they offered a fair price and promised to pay. To them it was enforcing a just price, not theft.

Was the Boston coffee riot related to the Boston Tea Party?

Not directly. The Tea Party in 1773 was a protest against British taxes; the 1777 riot was about wartime hoarding and prices. The link is cultural: both show how tea and coffee had become political in Boston.

Sources

1. Abigail Adams to John Adams, 30 July 1777, Founders Online, National Archives (Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 2, with editorial notes).
2. The Female Food Riots of the American Revolution, New England Historical Society, updated 2026.

Facts checked in October 2026.

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