John Crane

Who was John Crane?

John Crane was a participant in the Boston Tea Party and a soldier during the American Revolutionary War.

Crane was born in Braintree, Massachusetts. He served in the French and Indian War as a substitute for his father, who had been drafted. After the war he became a housewright. He married Mehitable Wheeler in 1767 and opened a shop in Boston.

Early in the American Revolutionary movement Crane became active in the Sons of Liberty. Before the Boston Tea Party, Crane and the other participants met at his shop to disguise themselves as American Indians. At the harbor, Crane was in the hold of a ship when he was knocked unconscious by a crate of tea that fell on him. Taking him for dead, his companions hid him under a pile of wood shavings in a carpenter's shop near the wharf, but he soon recovered.

Crane moved to Providence, Rhode Island, in 1774 because the Boston Port Bill harmed his business. After shooting began at the battles of Lexington and Concord, he joined the siege of Boston with an artillery company from Rhode Island, and saw action in July 1775. That year he joined the newly organized Continental Army as a major in the artillery regiment commanded by Henry Knox.