Happy Evacuation Day!

Even though March 17th is widely known as St. Patrick’s Day for those in Boston and surrounding Suffolk County it is still a public holiday known as Evacuation Day.

It is on this day in March of 1776 that the Crown forces who were occupying the Town of Boston evacuated the city and eventually sailed to Halifax. A large factor in the British choosing to leave was the guns that Knox brought from Fort Ticonderoga were used to fortify the Dorchester Heights which had a dominating position over the entire town.

Observing this evacuation was Private Solomon Nash a soldier in Capt. Drury’s Company in Henry Knox’s Artillery Regiment. He noted this event in his journal: “March ye 17th Sunday - this morning between 8 and 9 o’clock there was a general alarm in our camps and the Enemy made great haste to get on board the ships and about 10 o’clock the whole fell down below The Castle and about 2 o’clock we marched in and took possession of the town, the enemy had left a great many good cannon left spiked up and one mortar left”

Image of the journal is from the New York Historical Society.

https://digitalcollections.nyhistory.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A120006