Ursuline Convent riots
The Ursuline Convent riots occurred August 11 and 12, 1834, in
Background
From the founding of the
The idea of establishing an Ursuline school in Boston originated with Father John Thayer, a Massachusetts native who converted to Roman Catholicism after a transformative experience in
Mother St. George and Bishop
Rumors
Roman Catholic institutions, especially convents, were frequently rumored by anti-Catholics to be dens of immorality and corruption, and the Charlestown facility in particular was seen by the lower class Protestants as a place where Catholics and wealthy Unitarians conspired against them.
July–August 1834
On the evening of July 28, 1834, Sister Mary John (Elizabeth Harrison), a nun teaching at the convent, made her way to a sympathetic family that lived nearby, escorted by Edward Cutter and John Runey, two anti-Catholic residents of Charlestown. She was convinced to return to the convent the next day by Bishop Fenwick.[17] This episode prompted rumors that she was being held against her will and even tortured at the convent.[20] Local newspapers, on hearing of the story, began publishing accounts of a "mysterious woman" kept against her will in the convent. As the accounts spread, concern over the fate of the "mysterious woman" (with details of her situation conflated with those of Rebecca Reed) appear to have incited the largely Protestant workmen of Charlestown to take action. Meetings of increasing size took place at a local school that were said to be the organizational meetings for the events that transpired.[21] On August 10, placards were found posted in Charlestown stating: "To the Selectmen of Charlestown!! Gentlemen: It is currently reported that a mysterious affair has lately happened at the Nunnery in Charlestown, now it is your duty gentlemen to have this affair investigated immediately[;] if not the Truckmen of Boston will demolish the Nunnery thursday [sic] night—August 14."[22]
The first riot: August 11, 1834
By the end of the first week of August, both Cutter and the Charlestown
was informed by her that she was at liberty to leave the Institution at any time she chose. The same statement was also made by the Superior, who farther remarked, that, in the present state of public feeling, she should prefer to have her leave.[23]
On Sunday, August 10, Reverend Beecher preached anti-Catholic sermons at three different Boston churches, in part railing specifically against Catholic schools set up to educate Protestant children.[24] On Monday, August 11, a group of selectmen was admitted to the convent and given a detailed tour by Sister Mary John.[25] As they left the convent, the men were subjected to verbal abuse by the school's students, inquiring if they had found the supposedly missing woman.[26] The selectmen then prepared a statement for publication the next day, that was intended to reassure the public that the woman was in good health, that she was not being held against her will, and that the convent was fit to live in.[25]
Although rumors of a planned disturbance had reached the convent by August 11, neither the nuns, the students, nor the parents appeared to believe that anything serious would occur. Franchot even reports one student comparing the day to a holiday.[27]
At about 8:00 on the evening of August 11, a group of angry Protestant citizens gathered outside the door to the convent. They began to call for the release of the "mysterious lady". A witness to the riot reported that a nun came to the window and asked the crowd to disperse. According to this witness, on seeing the nun, the crowd offered their protection to the nun.[28] At this point the mother superior appeared and stated that the nuns did not need any sort of protection, and that the entire household was in bed. She further threatened the crowd with retaliation from the Catholic population of Boston: "The Bishop has twenty thousand of the vilest Irishmen at his command, and you may read your riot act till your throats are sore, but you'll not quell them."[29]
The crowd eventually dispersed, only to return several hours later. At about 11:00, a crowd of 50–60 men (as estimated by the Boston Evening Transcript; the Mercantile Journal estimated the crowd as between 150 and 200) set fire to tar barrels on the convent grounds. Several fire companies were called to the scene, but declined to intervene, instead joining a crowd of spectators, which eventually grew to around 2,000 people. No city in the United States at the time had a professional police force.
Soon after the tar barrels had been set alight, the crowd broke down doors and windows to enter the convent and began to ransack the buildings. The nuns and pupils began to leave from the back and hid in the garden. At about midnight, the rioters set fire to the buildings, which burned to the ground within an hour or two, leaving them in ruins.
Response: the Faneuil Hall, Charlestown, and Cathedral meetings
At 11:00 the following morning,
The selectmen of Charlestown also called a public meeting on August 12, passing similar resolutions condemning the violence. The resolution also set up a "Committee of Vigilance", with authority to investigate the incident and offer a reward for information leading to the arrest of the perpetrators.[32]
On the same day, Bishop Fenwick called a meeting of the Catholic citizenry of the Boston area. He encouraged the audience to forgo revenge as incompatible with "the religion of
The second riot: August 12, 1834
In keeping with the resolutions adopted in the meeting at Faneuil Hall, an independent militia company was activated,[34] its members stationed not only around Faneuil Hall, but at the city arsenal, the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, the Catholic church in Charlestown, and the house of Edward Cutter. Notably, no troops were posted around the remains of the convent.[35]
At about 10:00 on the evening of Wednesday, August 12, a crowd gathered outside the arsenal. Finding it guarded, they moved first to the cathedral, then to the
Investigation, arrests, and trial
The committee established by Mayor Lyman met every day except Sundays from August 13 to August 27. Testimony heard by this committee, and by the Charlestown selectmen's committee, led to thirteen arrests, of which eight were for the
.The trials of the defendants began on December 2, 1834 with the trial of John R. Buzzell, the self-confessed ringleader of the mob. State Attorney General James T. Austin protested the early date of the trial, since death threats had been issued against any potential witnesses for the prosecution. Buzzell himself later stated, "The testimony against me was point blank and sufficient to have convicted twenty men, but somehow I proved an alibi, and the jury brought in a victory of not guilty, after having been out for twenty-one hours."[36] Eventually, twelve of the thirteen defendants were acquitted. The thirteenth, a sixteen-year-old who had participated in book-burning at the riot, was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labor. He was pardoned by Governor John Davis in response to multiple petitions, including one signed by five thousand citizens of Boston whose signatories included Bishop Fenwick and Mother Superior Mary St. George.[37]
Role of Lyman Beecher
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Rev.
Authors disagree as to whether Lyman Beecher's three anti-catholic speeches triggered the burning. For example, Ira Leonard, author of American Nativism, 1830-1860, notes that the three anti-catholic speeches "by Lyman Beecher" ultimately "ignited the spark["]. This statement implies that some of the individuals involved in the burning attended one of Beecher's three sermons. Conversely, Ray Billington understands the two events to be more coincidental. Billington notes that, although the convent burned the evening of Beecher's sermons, the group of working-class men who organized the burning met on three separate occasions, two of which proceeded the Beecher's sermons. Furthermore, Beecher spoke at upper-class churches which the workers would not have attended. "In all probability," Billington comments, "the [convent] would have been attacked whether or not these sermons were delivered."[39]
Aftermath
The investigative committee formed by Mayor Lyman had recommended that the city of Charlestown or the
In 1839, the state enacted legislation holding communities legally responsible for property destruction by mobs within their jurisdiction. Renewed proposals for restitution were brought before the assembly in 1841, 1842, 1843, and 1844, generally promoted by prominent Boston liberal and high-minded Protestants. Each time, the motion to indemnify the diocese failed.[42] In 1846, the assembly voted to provide the diocese with $10,000. The diocese rejected the offer, estimating the actual loss at approximately $100,000. The request was presented again to the assembly in 1853 and 1854, and again was defeated each time.
The Ursuline nuns were at first sheltered by the Sisters of Charity, and then moved to a leased house in
Legacy
The ruins of the convent remained in place for many years afterward, presenting a stark contrast to the nearby
The Ursulines were invited back to the Boston area in 1946, when a new Ursuline Academy was established on Arlington Street in Boston. The school is now located in Dedham.[46]
Footnotes
- ISBN 978-1555535148.
- ^ "The Charter of Massachusetts Bay - 1691". 18 December 1998.
and for the greater Ease and Encouragement of Our Loveing Subjects Inhabiting our said Province or Territory of the Massachusetts Bay and of such as shall come to Inhabit there Wee doe by these presents for vs Our heires and Successors Grant Establish and Ordaine that for ever hereafter there shall be a liberty of Conscience allowed in the Worshipp of God to all Christians (Except Papists) Inhabiting or which shall Inhabit or be Resident within our said Province or Territory
- ^ Tager, p. 104
- ^ Tager, p. 105
- ^ Schultz, pp. 11-13
- ^ Schultz, pp. 14-15
- ^ Schultz, p. 18
- ^ Schultz, pp. 39-57
- ^ Franchot, p. 138
- ^ Tager, p. 106
- ^ Tager, p. 107
- ^ Tager, p. 108
- ^ Schultz, p. 108
- ^ Schultz, pp. 136-137
- ^ Schultz, p. 138
- ^ Tager, pp. 109-111
- ^ a b Tager, p. 111
- ^ Schultz, p. 121
- ^ Schultz, p. 122
- ^ Tager, p. 112
- ^ Schultz, pp. 159-161
- ^ Prioli, 103.
- ^ a b "Burning".
- ^ Schultz, pp. 165-66
- ^ a b Schultz, p. 167
- ^ Schultz, p. 168
- ^ Roads To Rome 140.
- ^ Franchot, 145
- ^ Thaxter, in Hamilton.
- ^ Schultz, pp. 178–182
- ^ "Faneuil Hall resolutions". Archives of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. Archived from the original on 2006-05-21.
- ^ a b "The Outrage".
- ^ Schultz, p. 184
- ^ Schultz, p. 185
- ^ "The Convent".
- ^ Hamilton.
- ^ Lord, Harrington & Sexton, pp. 2:227-230
- ISBN 0802834264.
- ^ Baker, Sean (2016). "American Nativism, 1830-1845". West Virginia University. Retrieved November 25, 2019.
- ^ Lord, Harrington & Sexton, p. 2:232
- ^ Lord, Harrington & Sexton, p. 2:233
- ^ a b Lord, Harrington & Sexton, p. 2:237
- ^ Lord, Harrington & Sexton, p. 2:231
- ^ Lord, Harrington & Sexton, p. 2:230
- ^ Lord, Harrington & Sexton, p. 2:239
- ^ "History of the Ursuline Academy". Ursuline Academy. Retrieved 2021-01-15.
References
- Bisson, Wilfred J., Countdown to Violence: The Charlestown Convent Riot 1834: New York: Garland: 1989: ISBN 0-8240-4064-3
- Franchot, Jenny (1994). "Two Escaped Nuns: Rebecca Reed and Maria Monk". Roads to Rome: The Antebellum Protestant Encounter with Catholicism. Berkeley, California (USA): The University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-07818-5.
- Hamilton, Jeanne (Winter 1996). "The nunnery as menace: The burning of the Charlestown convent, 1834". The Catholic Historian..
- Hammett, Theodore M. "Two Mobs of Jacksonian Boston: Ideology and Interest." Journal of American History (1976): 845-868. in JSTOR
- Lord, Robert; Harrington, Edward; Sexton, John (1944). History of the archdiocese of Boston in the various stages of its development, 1604 to 1943. New York: Sheed & Ward. OCLC 1300309.
- Prioli, Carmine A. (February–March 1996). "The Ursuline outrage". American Heritage. 33 (2): 101–105. ISSN 0002-8738.
- Schultz, Nancy Lusignan (2000). Fire and Roses: The Burning of the Charlestown Convent. New York: The Free Press. ISBN 978-1-55553-514-8.
- Tager, Jack (2001). Boston Riots. Boston: Northeastern University Press. ISBN 978-1555534608.
Primary sources
- A friend of religious toleration (1834). An account of the conflagration of the Ursuline convent. At the request of several gentlemen, the author was induced to publish the following statement of facts, in relation to the Ursuline convent, which was destroyed by fire, on the night of August 11th, 1834. Boston.
- Whitney, Louisa G. (1877). The Burning of the Convent. A Narrative of the Destruction, by a Mob, of the Ursuline School on Mount Benedict, Charlestown, As Remembered by One of Her Pupils. Cambridge, MA, USA: Welch, Bigelow & Co. ISBN 9780608365824.
Newspaper accounts
- "The Outrage". Boston Evening Transcript. 13 August 1834. Archived from the original on 21 May 2006. Retrieved 10 March 2006.
- "Great Meeting at Faneuil Hall". Boston Evening Transcript. 12 August 1834. Archived from the original on 21 May 2006. Retrieved 10 March 2006.
- "Burning of the Charlestown Convent". Boston Evening Transcript. 12 August 1834. Archived from the original on 21 May 2006. Retrieved 10 March 2006. (Also cited as "Burning".)
- "The Convent". Boston Evening Transcript. 12 August 1834. Archived from the original on 21 May 2006. Retrieved 10 March 2006.
External links
- Ursuline Report of the Burning of the Convent, August 11, 1834. Catholic University:University Archives, box 1, folder 5, item 1 (n.a., n.d., n.p.)
- The Ursuline Convent, Charlestown, Mass., Collection - online images from American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives, Catholic University of America.
- The Nunnery As Menace: The Burning of the Charlestown Convent, 1834 by Jeanne Hamilton, O.S.U.