Shadrach Minkins is arrested then freed.

A runaway enslaved person from Virginia working as a waiter at Taft’s Cornhill Coffee House, he is arrested by federal marshals and brought to the Suffolk County Court House where he is represented by lawyer Robert Morris. Aided by Morris, a group that includes Lewis Hayden, James Scott, and John Smith overpowers guards, frees Minkins, and rushes him to Beacon Hill, after which he flees to Montreal. Although the Boston Evening Transcript decries the event as the act of a mob, Theodore Parker subsequently calls it, “The noblest deed done in Boston since the destruction of the tea in 1773.” Hayden and another man are indicted for their actions, but the charges against them are subsequently dropped.