In March 1916, Haverhill Mayor Albert L. Bartlett refused to grant Dr. Thomas E. Leyden a permit to use City Hall for a lecture regarding the appropriation of state money for parochial schools, called "Why the Roman Hierarchy Is Opposed to the Public Schools", which was seen as anti-Catholic.
[1] The Haverhill Ministers' Association, which was made up of ministers from all of the city's Protestant churches, held a protest meeting and adopted a resolution objecting to Bartlett's decision to deny Leyden use of City Hall "irrespective of our several opinions of the issues to be discussed by Dr.
[1] The board of aldermen overruled Bartlett's decision and granted Leyden permission to use City Hall for his lecture.
[5] About 150 people were granted admission to the hall to hear the lecture, but due to the presence of the mob outside, police commissioner Charles M. Hoyt appeared on stage to announce that the meeting had been canceled.
He eventually decided to sound the militia alarm, which alerted members of local command (Co. F of the 8th Regiment), who had been expecting trouble.
[2] Leyden was eventually able to exit City Hall through a rear door and was taken by car to Newburyport, Massachusetts.
Upon Leyden's departure from Haverhill, City Marshal Mack told him not to return and if he did he would be arrested for inciting to riot.
On July 12, 1916, Essex County District Attorney Louis Cox issued 53 summons to Haverhill residents to appear before the grand jury investigating the case.
[6] On July 18, Mayor Bartlett and all four members of the board of aldermen (Roswell L. Wood, Albert E. Stickney, Charles M. Hoyt, and Christopher C. Cook) were all indicted on a charge of neglect to suppress an unlawful assembly.