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Lot 13
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Rare 1876 Rev War Centennial reprint reporting the Boston Massacre
Rare 1876 Rev War Centennial reprint reporting the Boston Massacre
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Description:

Boston Massacre 1770 - Rare 1876 Revolutionary War Centennial reprint of "The Boston Gazette" of March 12, 1770, reporting the Boston Massacre


Newspaper, 4p, 10.5" x 15.75", on two conjoined sheets "The Boston Gazette, and Country Journal," Monday, March 12, 1770. Noted in tiny print at the bottom of page four: "Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by H.G. Phillips, in the office of Librarian of Congress at Washington. Reproduced in fac-simile from the original copy; for H.G. Phillips, 261 Chapel Street, New Haven, Conn. Professionally mended and reinforced at folds and hinge on pages 1 and 4. Very good condition.

The newspaper was published weekly on Mondays. The three columns on pages two and three are heavily black-bordered. Four drawn coffins are printed on page three, each with the initials of the Bostonians who were killed: "SG" "SM" "JC" "CA". There was a fifth casualty, mentioned in the report as wounded, who died after this issue went to press. The account of what happened on Monday, March 5, 1777, is on page 2. In part:

"A few minutes after nine o'clock four youths, named Edward Archbald, William Merchant, Francis Archbald, and John Leech, jun., came down Cornhill together, and separating at Doctor Loring's corner, the two former were passing the narrow alley leading Mr. Murray's barrack in which was a soldier brandishing a broad sword of an uncommon size against the walls, out of which he struck fire plentifully. A person of mean countenance. armed with a large cudgel bore him company. Edward Archbald admonished Mr. Merchant to take care of the sword, on which the soldier turned round and struck Archbald on the arm, then pushed at Merchant and pierced through his clothes inside the arm close to the armpit and grazed the skin.

"Merchant then struck the soldier with a short stick he had; and the other person ran to the barrack and brought with him two soldiers, one armed with a pair of tongs, the other with a shovel ... The noise brought people together; and John Hicks, a young lad, coming up, knocked the soldier down but let him get up again; and more lads gathering, drove them back to the barrack where the boys stood some time as it were to keep them in. In less than a minute ten or twelve of them came out with drawn cutlasses, clubs, and bayonets and set upon the unarmed boys and young folk who stood them a little while but, finding the inequality of their equipment, dispersed...

"Thirty or forty persons, mostly lads, being by this means gathered in King Street, Capt. Preston with a party of men with charged bayonets, came from the main guard to the commissioner's house, the soldiers pushing their bayonets, crying, make way! They took place by the custom house and, continuing to push to drive the people off pricked some in several places, on which they were clamorous and, it is said, threw snow balls. On this, the Captain commanded them to fire; and more snow balls coming, he again said, damn you, fire, be the consequence what it will! One soldier then fired, and a townsman with a cudgel struck him over the hands with such force that he dropped his firelock; and, rushing forward, aimed a blow at the Captain's head which grazed his hat and fell pretty heavy upon his arm. However, the soldiers continued the fire successively till seven or eight or, as some say, eleven guns were discharged ... By this fatal manoeuvre three men were laid dead on the spot and two more struggling for life; but what showed a degree of cruelty unknown to British troops, at least since the house of Hanover has directed their operation, was an attempt to fire upon or push with their bayonets the persons who undertook to remove the slain and wounded! Mr. Benjamin Leigh, now undertaker in the Delph manufactory, came up and after some conversation with Capt. Preston relative to his conduct in this affair, advised him to draw off his men, with which he complied.

"The dead are Mr. Samuel Gray, killed on the spot, the ball entering his head and beating off a large portion of his skull. A mulatto man named Crispus Attucks, who was born in Framingham, but lately belonged to New-Providence and was here in order to go for North Carolina, also killed instantly, two balls entering his breast, one of them in special goring the right lobe of the lungs and a great part of the liver most horribly. Mr. James Caldwell, mate of Capt. Morton's vessel, in like manner killed by two balls entering his back. Mr. Samuel Maverick, a promising youth of seventeen years of age, son of the widow Maverick, and an apprentice to Mr. Greenwood, ivory-turner, mortally wounded; a ball went through his belly and was cut out at his back. He died the next morning ... Mr. Patrick Carr, about thirty years of age, who worked with Mr. Field, leather breeches-maker in Queen Street, wounded; a ball entered near his hip and went out at his side..." Carr later died. All five were buried in Boston's Granary Burying Ground.

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