A private ceremony Saturday honored a Gorham patriot who heaved British tea overboard in the Boston Tea Party protest 249 years ago.

Ephraim Smith was a 22-year-old sailor at the time of the tea party, Dec. 16,1773. He later bought a farm in Gorham where he lived, died and was buried.

At the remote burial plot at the aptly named Colonial Acres farm off Sebago Lake Road, Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum marked Smith’s grave with a brass medallion. Emily Marcos, dressed in colonial-era garb, placed the marker for the Boston organization.

The ceremony was in advance of next year’s 250th tea party anniversary.

Smith’s grave was discovered in a field at Colonial Acres after a townwide search. Claude “Fred” Daigle said his grandfather preserved the remote cemetery in what was then a potato field, but he might have been unaware of Smith’s connection to the Tea Party. Daigle, who manages Colonial Acres, was unaware of the connection when he uncovered the gravestones about 30 years ago, and “my father didn’t know,” either, he said.

Gorham Historical Society President Suzanne Phillips and Bruce Roullard, chairperson of  Gorham Historic Preservation Commission and a member of Sons of the American Revolution, went looking for Smith’s grave in August when town and cemetery records proved inaccurate. Smith’s grave was found after Phillips talked with Daigle.

Evan O’Brien, Boston Tea Party Ships &  Museum creative manager, thanked Phillips and Roullard for their research, along with  Claude Daigle and his wife, Tracey Daigle, for granting ceremony permission.

Jonathan Lane, 250 Boston coordinator, described the Tea Party tax protest as “ordinary citizens doing extraordinary things.”

 

 

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