Peter Mackintosh, daguerreotype.
Peter Mackintosh was a 16-year-old apprentice blacksmith in Boston working in the shop of his master, Richard Gridley, the night of December 16, 1773 when a group of young men rushed into the shop, grabbed ashes from the hearth and rubbed them on their faces. They were among those running to Griffin’s Wharf to throw tea into the harbor as part of the Boston Tea Party that started the Revolution. Mackintosh later served in the Continental Artillery as an artificer, a craftsman attached to the army who shoed horses and repaired cannons, including one mortar whose repair General George Washington oversaw personally. During his last years, Mackintosh and his lawyers fought for the pension he deserved. The government awarded it to his family only after his death, which was on November 23, 1846 at age 89.
