Mob protests against smallpox inoculations.

The mob attacks the home of Cotton Mather near today’s 332 (298 – 300) Hanover Street. Someone tosses a “granado” bomb through another window, but it does not ignite. Mather is targeted because he had criticized the New England Courant for its campaign against inoculation, calling it “A notorious, scandalous paper . . . full freighted with nonsence, unmanliness, prophaness, immorality, arrogance, lies, contradictions, and what not, all tending to . . . debauch and corrupt the minds and manners of New England.”