In his biographies, written at the end of his life, Hewes recalled that his participation in the Patriot movement had begun on March 5, 1770, when he joined the mob of Bostonian apprentices and craftsmen at what is now called the Boston Massacre.

Hewes was unarmed during the riot that ensued but was injured when Private Matthew Kilroy struck him in the shoulder with his Brown Bess musket.

On his way home that night, Hewes had a verbal confrontation with two British soldiers, which he related in an official deposition the next day.

In January, Hewes was at the center of the events surrounding the tarring and feathering of John Malcolm, one of the most publicized incidents of its kind.

[3] On January 25, 1774, according to the account in the The Massachusetts Gazette, Hewes saw Malcolm threatening to strike a boy with his cane.

The crowd took him to the Liberty Tree, where it threatened first to hang him and then to cut off his ears if he did not apologize for his behavior and renounce his customs commission.

Hewes' first period of military service began in the fall of 1776 when he sailed aboard the privateering ship Diamond.

Hewes later recalled that when the voyage dragged on longer, and no additional prizes had been captured, he joined the crew in threatening to mutiny if the captain did not sail back to Providence.

The democratic style of leadership in the militia and aboard the privateers left its mark on Hewes, and he never forgot the respect he received from his social superiors during this time.

He became, however, a notable figure in the community, being one of the last survivors of the Revolutionary War and appearing at Independence Day festivities in his militia uniform every Fourth of July.

[9] During this period, in 1833, a writer named James Hawkes discovered Hewes in Richfield Springs and wrote a biography about him, A Retrospect of the Boston Tea-Party.

He sat for a portrait by Joseph Cole, called simply The Centenarian, which now hangs in the Old State House in Boston.

He was the guest of honor at an elaborate ceremony on the Fourth of July attended by the lieutenant governor and by other Revolutionary War veterans.

He was buried without public commemoration in Richfield Springs; in 1896 he was reburied ceremoniously in the town's Grand Army of the Republic cemetery for veterans.