At the age of 19, Shattuck joined the Massachusetts Militia as a private in Captain Ephraim Jones's company and took part in the expulsion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia in 1755.

[1] In October 1781, while serving as town selectman, Shattuck was one of eighteen men obstructing the tax collecting efforts of two constables on three separate occasions, a series of events called the "Groton Riots."

Crippled by debt in the aftermath of the revolution, the state of Massachusetts levied upon its towns and citizens tax burdens higher than had been in place during British rule.

The high tax burden, combined with the demand that it be paid in specie and the high-handed control of the government by merchant interests, transformed rural resentment into a full-blown agrarian revolt.

The rebellion was waged primarily by debt-ridden western farmers and landowners who banded together and captured shire town courthouses in Massachusetts, closing them to all proceedings.

To officials in Boston, Job Shattuck became, perhaps even more than Daniel Shays, the leader of the agrarians in the western part of the state, a leading firebrand and empathetic advocate of the soldier–farmer who had risked life, limb, and land for the cause of the revolution only to return from the war to find injustice and foreclosure still looming.

A similar raid upon the courthouse in Cambridge was planned by the Shaysites for November; however, officials in Boston acted before this could occur by issuing a warrant for the immediate arrest of Shattuck and four other conspirators.