Josiah Quincy III is elected mayor of Boston.

Quincy (F) defeats George Blake by a margin of 2,505 to 2,180 (2,495-2,182-Formisano) and others. Although the new city charter stipulates little power to the mayor, John T. Galvin subsequently writes, “Quincy took the reins into his own hands [and], made himself chairman of every committee.” He rises before dawn to survey the city on horseback, holds office hours six days a week to hear citizen complaints, reorganizes and professionalizes city departments, leads police raids, establishes services for the poor and street-cleaning, initiates the first municipal sewer system in the U.S., and builds market complex that is later named for him in 1826.*