Ebenezer Mcintosh/Mackintosh was born 20 June 1737 to a poor Boston, Massachusetts, family.  Ebenezer lived his family until 1751, when his mother died and his father departed Boston, leaving him as an apprentice to his shoemaker uncle, Ichabod Jones.  Boston shoemakers were usually considered lower class.  Mackintosh enlisted in the militia in 1754 and was part of the British-Colonial mission to Fort Ticonderoga in 1758.  In the 1760s, Mackintosh gained notoriety as a popular leader among the poor of Boston's South End.  He became head of the South End gang in the Guy Fawkes Day yearly festivities.

Mackintosh played a key role in riots and events in 1765 related to the protests and eventual repeal of the Stamp Act in March 1766.  The passing of the Stamp Act in March 1765 caused unrest in the American colonies.  The Sons of Liberty were a leading group of American dissidents at that time.  The Loyal Nine, a group of nine businessmen, led the Sons of Liberty and were a link between the common people and wealthier classes.  In August 1765, the Loyal Nine arranged the unification of the North and South End crowds.  The group also found a mob captain among the common people to do their bidding:  Ebenezer Mackintosh.  He was styled as the First Captain-General of Liberty Tree and had charge of illumination and hanging of effigies.  The crowds were brought together by feelings of discontent and anger about economic depression and unemployment as well as the Stamp Act.  Only basic leadership was necessary.  Mackintosh was a good choice as he was lower class and had a small government position.  He had been chosen that year for the unpaid town position of sealer of leather.

Mackintosh led a destructive riot of more than 3,000 in protest of the Stamp Act, 14 August 1765. The crowd invaded the house of soon-to-be stamp distributor Andrew Oliver.  The crowd also destroyed, in less than 30 minutes, an office that he had built, and then used the timbers for a bonfire. Rioters hung an effigy of Andrew Oliver, and a boot that represented the British men of power, the Earl of Bute and George Grenville.  The next day, Andrew Oliver resigned through letter from the position of stamp distributor.  Samuel Adams was pleased with the crowd's actions and described it as "…deliberately [and]… rationally destroying property, after trying every method to preserve it… when the men in power had rendered the destruction of that property the only means of securing the property of all.”

Ebenezer Mackintosh led a riot that destroyed three houses, including that of Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson, 26 August 1765.  Afterwards, Mackintosh had to run for his life, breaking up his possessions, including his many manuscripts, and his money. He was caught and arrested, but leading Whigs stopped Suffolk County policeman Stephen Greenleaf from keeping him by swearing peace would be maintained in Boston only if Mackintosh was set free.  Andrew Eliot, a witness of the events, wrote in a letter to a colleague, Thomas Hollis, in England:  "The good people of Boston are very careful to distinguish between the 14th and the 26th of August. The attack on Secretary Oliver…it is supposed was under direction of some persons of character.  It is certain, people in general were not displeased.  The 26th of August was under a very different direction.  It was a scene of riot, drunkenness, profaneness and robbery."

There is also no record of Mcintosh being involved in mobs in the late 1760s and 1770s protesting regulations by Britain.  In the early 1770s, Mackintosh spent time in debtors’ prison.  By September 1774, Mackintosh left Boston and settled at the town of Haverhill, New Hampshire.  In 1777, he joined the army for two months to fight the attack on New York City led by British General John Burgoyne.  Having returned to Haverhill, he served as the town's sealer of leather in 1782, 1783, and 1784.

He was poor towards the end of his life, having to sell his work to the overseer of the Haverhill poor farm in 1810 and 1811 to get by.  When he died in 1816, he was buried at the local Haverhill cemetery under the name of Philip McIntosh by mistake, with the claim that he led the Boston Tea Party in 1773.  Mackintosh claimed involvement in the Boston Tea Party, and although there is no direct evidence of this, researchers have opined "…that he had a hand in the affair seems reasonably certain."