In the 1760s, the town gaol (jail) where prisoners were held while awaiting trial was a cold, dark, and truly terrifying edifice on Queen Street, just up the hill from the Old State House. When a fire was discovered in the jailhouse just after 10pm on January 30, 1769, it briefly became the focal point of the long-simmering tensions between the town and the occupying British soldiers that would eventually culminate in the Boston Massacre. Who deliberately set the fire in the jail, and why were some of the prisoners grievously injured before they could be rescued? Who was responsible for patrolling the streets of a city under military occupation? What was the legal role of the occupiers during a fire emergency, and how did the fire at the old Boston jail become a surprising story of cooperation between the rival factions in Boston? Listen now for all those answers and more!
Continue reading Watchmen, Redcoats, and a Fire in the Old Boston Jail (episode 267)
