If you stopped by the Durant-Kenrick House on Saturday, you may have learned how to make chocolate tea. No, chocolate tea is not a new TikTok trend (yet). It’s something Colonial-era New Englanders made to offset the loss of all the tea that colonists threw into the Boston Harbor in 1773.

“Forty-six tons of it we dumped into the Boston Harbor,” Rhonda McConnon, portraying a colonial woman making tea from various herbs and roots in the Kenrick-Durant House tea room, said. “In today’s money. they’re estimating that was worth about $1.7 million. So, this was no small decision to dump the tea into the harbor.”

McConnon and a bunch of other historical reenactors were part of “Revolutionary Newton,” a daylong celebration of Newton’s history and Newton’s role in the American Revolution.

Historical reenactors greet guests at the Durant-Kenrick House on March 15, 2025. Photo by Bryan McGonigle

“I think the day was super exciting,” Historic Newton Community Outreach Manager Leah Sause said. “We had dozens of families. Over 250 people attended to learn about the Revolution. We had a lot of people invested in talking to our Colonial reenactors, learning about what daily life would have looked like when the Durant family lived in this house.”

Outside, a man in British soldier attire—a “redcoat,” as they were called by Colonials—talked to visitors about which misbehaviors could result in a hanging. And about 30 feet away, a man named Jonathan Seredynski represented His Majesty’s Indian Department, established in 1755 to manage trade and justice with the North American native tribes.

“I’m portraying basically a ranger, a British loyalist who integrated with the Native American communities,” Seredynski said. “So basically, they were adopting a lot of their clothing, their ways of life, their culture, basically saw them as brothers and family.”

Some rangers even married Native women, merging families.

Jonathan Seredynski portrays a ranger with His Majesty’s Indian Department outside the Durant-Kenrick House on March 15, 2025. Photo by Bryan McGonigle

The Durant-Kenrick House has a long, rich history of public service, abolitionism, revolution and strawberries.

Edward Durant II bought the land (then 91 acres) in 1732 and built the house in 1734. After his death in 1740, his son, Captain Edward Durant III, inherited the house.

Edward Durant III made an even bigger name for the family than his dad. He graduated from Harvard, accumulated 150 acres of land in Newton and served as a selectman, as a constable and as a surveyor of highways (that was kind of their DPW commissioner), and played an active role in the political movement that sparked the American Revolution. He served as chairman of the Committee of Correspondence, which organized resistance to British governing policies, and two of his sons served as Minutemen in the Battle of Lexington and Concord in April 1775.

Historical reenactors teach visitors about life in New England in the 1770s outside the Durant-Kenrick House. Photo by Bryan McGonigle

After the Revolution, the house was sold to abolitionist and horticulturist John Kenrick, who published a book, “The Horrors of Slavery,” in 1817 and whose family created the town’s first large-scale commercial nursery on the property. That nursery introduced Newton to a variety of new fruits, including Noblesse peaches and Duke of Kent strawberries.

The Kenrick family sold much of the land throughout the 19th century, including land that houses the Newton Commonwealth Golf Course.

In the early 20th century, the house was sold a couple of times and ended up in the hands of Durant family descendants, who later established the Durant Homestead Foundation. Historic Newton bought the property in 2011 and turned it into a museum in 2014.

A few hours after “Revolutionary Newton” ended on Saturday, guests packed the house again for “Naughty Newton at Night: Revolution After Hours,” an 18th century cocktail party with sordid stories of debauchery and undergarments, card games and more.