Boston Harbor Mass Meeting

Background. The Third Church's congregation had met since 1729 at the Old South Meeting House, at the corner of Washington and Milk Streets in Boston, after first gathering in its Cedar Meeting House of 1670. The congregation, first organized in 1669, was among the older religious communities in what became the United States.

Political Climate in Boston. Boston's economy had stagnated in the decades before the American Revolution, and the city's revolutionary spirit against unpopular policies of the British Parliament was widespread. In 1768 the British government sent 2,000 troops of the 14th Foot and 29th Foot to occupy Boston and enforce Crown authority, further inflaming tensions in the town.

The Mass Meeting. According to the legacy record, a mass meeting described as the largest held in New England up to that time took place at the Old South Meeting House to support a petition demanding that the British remove a ship hindering navigation in Boston Harbor. The supplied passages do not independently confirm this meeting or its date, so the legacy's June 14, 1768 date cannot be verified. [Source: legacy row 486a1971-3d8c-4b1c-a20c-ed5a5a4239b1, a discovery hint rather than a supplied passage.]