Boston Massacre
Boston, MA, March 30, 1770
Boston Massacre, Just Days After: "As to the Party that fired on our people they remain in Jail for there tryall" - Virtually Unique on the Market!
ALS

[BOSTON MASSACRE]. Joseph Scott, Autograph Letter Signed, to David Nichols, March 30, 1770, Boston, Massachusetts. 1 p., 6.25" x 7.75". Expected folds, separations repaired on verso with tape; some paper loss on address panel, not affecting text.

In this fascinating letter, Boston ironmonger and merchant Joseph Scott writes to David Nichols about business and the recent troubles in Boston, which came to be known as the "Boston Massacre."

Four and a half years later, Scott became the subject of Patriot violence. As an ironmonger, he had sold cannon shot, mortars, and other weapons and ammunition to the British Army, who took away ten cart-loads to their fortified battery. When the local Committee of Correspondence confronted Scott, he closed and locked his shop and cellar and told a British officer to stop removing the military supplies. On September 28, 1774, the British returned with 100 soldiers and 8 or 10 officers, broke into Scott's shop, and removed the remaining weapons and ammunition. Scott's neighbors were outraged and threatened his life. That night, angry Patriots gave Scott "a Hilsborough treat," a mixture of mud and human and animal waste. Not content with throwing the "treat" at the outside of his shop, they obtained a ladder, opened his chamber window, and emptied several buckets full into it.

Complete Transcript
Boston 30 March 1770.
Mr Nichols
I Received yrs yesterday by Mr Goodwin & by the first Vessell will send you the saw barrs. They are Exceeding scarce & not to be bought under 6d Lawfull ? pound Cash paid down. to Oblidge you Ill advance the money—shall send you 1 doz files
Shall be glad you Endeavor to send me some Cash as its a very scarce article with me at present
Have nothing of News to send you. The soldiers are at the castle & the town seems more quiet than for some time past. As to the party that fired on our people they remain in Jail for there tryall. Some think they will be hangd others think they will not, I suppose ten times as much is made of this affair as it really is. I have not time to give you the particulars at present as Mr Goodwin is waiting.
I shall send yr brother his Steell he writes for.
I am in hast yr humbe Servt
Joseph Scott

Historical Background
The Boston "Massacre" occurred on March 5, 1770, in Boston. A small group of soldiers, stationed in front of the Custom House, was taunted and attacked by a mob of several hundred citizens of Boston. When one soldier was knocked down by a thrown object, the soldiers fired into the mob, killing three instantly, mortally wounding two, and wounding six others less seriously. Acting Governor Thomas Hutchinson promised the crowd a fair investigation into the shootings.

Captain Thomas Preston and eight soldiers were arrested. On March 27, they and four civilians inside the Customs House who were alleged to have fired shots, were indicted for murder. In the trial that followed in November, attorney and future president John Adams and his co-counsel Josiah Quincy Jr. defended the soldiers, six of whom were acquitted, while the other two were convicted of manslaughter and branded on their thumbs in a reduced sentence.

Depictions and reports of the event, especially a colored engraving produced by Paul Revere, strengthened colonial resolve to resist British oppression.

Joseph Scott (d. aft. 1781) was a Boston ironmonger and hardware merchant and British Loyalist. In 1754, he married Freelove Olney (1733-1817) of Rhode Island, and they had at least five children. In the mid-1760s, John Singleton Copley painted portraits of Scott and his wife. Scott served as lieutenant colonel and acting commander of the Company of Cadets, a prestigious militia company, from 1769. In September 1774, hundreds of angry neighbors gathered around his home expressing "the greatest dissatisfaction at his conduct" in supplying the British army with weaponry, but several gentlemen intervened, and "no damage was done to his person or property." He left Boston for Nova Scotia with the British evacuation in 1776 and traveled from there to England. His wife, Freelove Scott, and their five children remained in Massachusetts, where she repeatedly petitioned the legislature for support between 1770 and 1780. Massachusetts authorities confiscated his property in 1779.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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  • Dimensions: 6.25" x 7.75"
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