HADLEY — On Dec. 16, 1773, Jeremiah Cady, 21, a Shutesbury resident, was invited to a meeting at the Old South Meeting House in Boston, where he joined in the destruction of 342 chests of tea.
Involved in the Boston Tea Party, one of the precipitating events for the Revolutionary War that began in 1775, Cady later enlisted as a minuteman, and was at the Battle of Bunker Hill.
When he died on June 1, 1848, almost 75 years after the Boston Tea Party, he was with the family of his daughter Salome Cooke, and was buried in the Old Hadley Cemetery.
As the only known participant at the Boston Tea Party with a connection to Hadley, the town’s Historical Commission and Cemetery Commission will be joined by representatives from the Boston Tea Party Ship Museum, the Massachusetts Revolution 250 and the Daughters and Sons of the Revolution for a grave-marking ceremony at the 12 Cemetery Road site Friday at 11 a.m.
Those from the museum are expected to speak and place a marker at his gravesite, while the Daughters of the American Revolution will place a Revolutionary War marker and the Sons of the American Revolution will have a color guard.
“It will be the only Boston Tea Party marker in the Hadley cemetery, and there’s only a few west of Worcester, as it is,” Sharon Parsons, a member of the Historical Commission, told the Select Board at a recent meeting.
The Select Board has also proclaimed Sept. 25 as Jeremiah Cady Day.
Originally from Connecticut, Cady came with his family to Shutesbury, where he married Hannah Warner in 1772. Around 1800, the Cadys and their 11 children, all born in Shutesbury, moved to New York state, finding the terrain there better for farming.
Cady spent much of the remainder of his life in towns in New York, before coming to Hadley, late in life as a widower, to live with his daughter’s family.
Any descendants are welcome to be present at the event, which is open to the public and will be held rain or shine.
