Boston Latin School is established.

(OS-4/13) Originally Latin Grammar School, it is created by town meeting and subsequently presumed to be located initially in the home of Philomen Portman, its first headmaster, near today’s 201 Washington Street. Considered the first public school in the British Colonies (although tuition is charged until 1845), the school moves to new building (first) on School Street in 1704* and many more times after that. Graduates include five signers of the Declaration of Independence, as well as Leonard Bernstein, Charles Bulfinch, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edward Everett Hale, Cotton Mather, George Santayana, and Charles Sumner.