Ursuline Convent is burned down.

Responding to rumors that young women are being kept there against their will, some 20,000 teamsters and brickyard workers destroy the Mount Benedict Academy convent on Charlestown Neck (in today’s Somerville). The police and fire departments fail to intervene, and the mob is not dissuaded by the mother superior, who, according to the Boston Morning Post, declares, “Dispense now and leave us in peace. For if you don’t, Bishop Fenwick has twenty-thousand of the vilest Irishmen at his command in Boston, who will whip you all into the sea.” Rather than rebuild, the Ursulines relocate first to Roxbury, then to Canada in 1838. The General Court deplores the crime, but refuses a demand for damages by the Catholic diocese, which sells the property in 1875.