"Everyone knew there was going to be trouble when the merchant ship Dartmouth, carrying 114 chests of fine blended tea, sailed into Boston Harbor on November 28, 1773." The story of the Boston Tea Party, from the arrival of the ships full of controversial taxed tea in Boston Harbor, through the explosive protest meetings at the Old South Church, to the defiant act of dumping 226 chests of tea into the harbor on December 16.