Mob destroys the market in Dock Square.

Disguised as clergymen, members of the mob tear down the town-operated market to protest the high, regulated prices being charged there. In describing The town at the time, Benjamin Colman writes, “A great & new affliction has befallen, even shameful and vile disorders at Boston, murmuring at the Government & the rich people among us as if they could (by any means within their Power, besides Prayer) have presented the rise of provisions. A number of five or six hundred men rose one night and pulled down the Market Place & the Town have been so wroth as to vote the disposing of the places to other uses . . . & none of the Rioters or Mutineers have been yet discovered or if suspected seem to regard it, their favourers being so many.”