James Bowdoin, in a Very Rare American Broadside, Orders Disaster Relief After the Great Boston Fire of 1787
Public records show no other copy of this broadside having reached the market and only 3 existing in institutional libraries
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Just as the tumult calmed after the suppression of Shays rebellion, a great fire broke out in Boston, the largest to date in that city’s history. These were grave back to back blows for the political career of then Governor James Bowdoin.
The fire took place on Friday, April 20, 1787. About...
Just as the tumult calmed after the suppression of Shays rebellion, a great fire broke out in Boston, the largest to date in that city’s history. These were grave back to back blows for the political career of then Governor James Bowdoin.
The fire took place on Friday, April 20, 1787. About 100 buildings were totally destroyed by fire in the southern part of the town. A strong southwesterly wind drove the flames to the water’s edge at the old West bay in the Charles River, which prevented more dwellings from being burned. The fire started at Washington and Beach Streets, and spread southerly to where the Tufts New England Medical Center now stands. It was low tide when the fire broke out, causing a severe water shortage for fighting the fire. What could have been a single-building fire became an inferno due to dry conditions and gusting winds. It was reported that light from the fire could be seen from 50 miles away, which is astounding. The April 26, 1787 Continental Journal describes this terrible disaster:
“About sun-set on Friday last, a fire broke out in the malt-house of Mr. William Patten, in Beach Street, a little to the north-east of Orange [Washington] street, at the south part of the town; and it is with real sorrow we announce, that the devastation which ensued, within about three hours time, was never equaled in this place, excepting in the years 1711 and 1760, since its first settlement….”
Broadside, Boston: Printed by Adams and Nourse, printers to the General Court, dated April 28, 1787. “Commonwealth of Massachusetts. By His Excellency James Bowdoin, Esquire … A brief, for a charitable contribution. Whereas by the permissive providence of God, a great number of families in the town of Boston, have from ease and affluence been suddenly reduced to extreme poverty and distress, by a destructive fire, which took place on the evening of the twentieth instant…” Not in Evans. – Not in Ford, W.C. Broadsides. Backed with a light tissue.
ESTC lists physical copies of this print only at the American Antiquarian Society, The Massachusetts Historical Society, and Boston Public Library.
Bowdoin lost the election that year.
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