The Robinson Half Chest is one of two known containers to have survived the Boston Tea Party, wherein 340 tea chests were dumped into Boston Harbor by rebelling colonists who later came to be known as the “Sons of Liberty” — 250 years ago today.

Such exhibitions of courage are what make us American, for which I am unashamedly grateful.

The wooden box is named for John Robinson, a teenager who noticed the crate had washed ashore the morning after the Party. He hid the booty in a storage space underneath the stairs of his home, consequently saving it from the British.

The chest was passed down for generations in the Robinson family, who diligently kept its story alive until they bequeathed the artifact to the Tea Party Museum upon its grand opening in 2012.