Town Jail (then “Gaol”) (first) is built.

It is located on Court Square (then Prison Lane) at today’s 26 Court Street. The first jail in Boston, it is an unheated wooden building with barred windows that is described as “[A place of] meagre Looks and ill smells.” Subsequently used by Nathaniel Hawthorne as the setting for a scene in his novel The Scarlet Letter, the building is replaced by the Bridewell (second) in 1721,* by a new building on Court Square (third) in 1767,* on Leverett Street (fourth) in 1822,* on Charles Street (fifth) in 1851,* and by the current building on Nashua Street (sixth) in 1991.*