Siege of Boston begins.

[20] Martial law is declared and the Selectmen’s meeting is suspended in the middle of the roll call. Fifteen to 20,000 colonial troops, under the command of Gen. Artemas Ward of Shrewsbury, surround the town and build a ring of earthen-work forts in Roxbury, Brookline, Cambridge, Somerville and Medford. Some 9,000 British troops occupy Boston, while some 10,000 residents who consider themselves patriots subsequently leave and are replaced by thousands of Loyalist residents from surrounding towns. Nathaniel Philbrick later writes, “A city had been turned inside out, as if by a taxidermist . . .”