This Month in 1774

So, I ended up being blind-sided by this month. There’s been a lot going on. But one thing that has stuck with me since the beginning of the year is that 1774 was 250 years ago. And just a few days ago, in 1774, General Gage arrived in Boston to take over the governorship of the colony of Massachusetts. It is the beginning of a very long slide downhill toward the opening shots of the American War for Independence on the green in Lexington. We are a little over a year away from the 250th commemoration of the Battles of Lexington and Concord.

For Massachusetts in particular, the arrival of General Gage will change things drastically. He brings news that Parliament has ordered him to close the port of Boston. All major shipping from the colony will move to other ports. The city of Boston becomes overrun by British troops. Many who are leaning toward independence end up leaving the city, though not all. We know that Paul Revere, for example, was still living in the city all through this year - though he will move out of the city after his fateful ride in 1775.

General Gage will be in Boston for just about two years, almost to the day. He will leave Boston with his troops on 17 March 1776, a day still celebrated in Boston (and surrounding Suffolk County) as Evacuation Day. (It is sometimes remarked on that Boston - a city known for its Irish population - has a day off on St. Patrick’s Day. It happens to be a coincidence. But yes, a somewhat suspect coincidence from an outside perspective.)

Just before Gage arrived in 1774, Bostonians had a memorial of their own. Just a few years earlier on 5 March 1770, five men had died from being shot just outside the customs house on King Street in an incident that came to be known as the Boston Massacre. Paul Revere had made a print of the incident that was widely circulated. Every year since, speeches were made on the anniversary in order that the people of Boston would not forget the horrors that occurred at British hands. The arrival of British troops on the heels of such an anniversary would have been a hard pill to swallow.

The slide toward war had truly begun.