Ursuline Convent riots
[1] The event was triggered by reported abuse of a member of the order, and was fueled by the rebirth of extreme anti-Catholic sentiment in antebellum New England.
When the Province of Massachusetts Bay was established in 1692, its charter protected freedom of worship for Protestants in general, but specifically excluded Roman Catholics.
[3] The arrival of many Catholic Irish immigrants ignited sectarian tensions, which were abetted by the Protestant religious revivals of the Second Great Awakening.
[4] 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 Rome in 1783.
A new leader, Mother Mary Edmond St. George, was recruited from the Ursuline convent in Trois Rivieres, Quebec, where the Boston nuns had trained.
[6] Mother St. George and Bishop Benedict Fenwick envisioned a larger convent and school property, in a country setting, that would cater to Boston's wealthy (and primarily liberal Unitarian) upper class, who would thus fund the expansion of the Catholic mission in the area.
[10] Anti-Catholic violence occurred in Boston at a low level in the 1820s, with attacks on the homes of Irish Catholic laborers taking place in 1823, 1826, and 1828.
[12] Specific acts of violence committed against the convent and the Catholic establishment in Charlestown included the killing of one of its dogs in 1829, the burning of its stable in 1830, and the destruction of an Irish bar in 1833 by Protestant rioters.
[16] A Boston newspaper in 1830 published a false story of a Protestant orphan spirited into the facility after manipulating a large sum of money from its caretakers.
In 1832, she declared her intent to enter the Ursuline novitiate, but left the convent after six months as a postulant (originally one who makes a request or demand, hence a candidate).
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.
"[22] By the end of the first week of August, both Cutter and the Charlestown selectmen were sufficiently disturbed by the rumors of impending action against the convent that they decided to investigate the situation further.
[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.
[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.
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.
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.
[30] At 11:00 the following morning, Theodore Lyman, the mayor of Boston, invited the public to a meeting at Faneuil Hall to discuss "measures relative to the riot at Charlestown".
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.
He also sent priests to intercept the movements of Irish Catholic workers from Lowell, Massachusetts and other communities who were reported to be coming by train to Boston to exact revenge.
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.
Lyman Beecher, a prominent Presbyterian minister, president of the Lane Theological Seminary, was preaching in the Boston area during the summer of 1834.
[citation needed] Following this recommendation, Bishop Fenwick petitioned the legislature in January 1835 for indemnification to rebuild the convent and school, arguing that the state had been derelict in its duty of protecting private property.
Following the acquittal of John Buzzell, rumors began circulating that their house, along with the two Catholic churches in Boston, were targets of planned attacks.
[42] The ruins of the convent remained in place for many years afterward, presenting a stark contrast to the nearby Bunker Hill Monument, completed in 1843.
