BOSTON — Reenactors in 18th-century military coats and tricorn hats filled the pews of one of the nation's oldest Catholic Churches on Tuesday before firing muskets outside and marching through neighborhood streets, marking the 250th anniversary of the day British forces evacuated the city.
Men, horses and even cattle moved through South Boston’s hills in the morning wind as residents watched from stoops — some in pajamas and wrapped in blankets, appearing to have been awakened by the sound of drums and bagpipes.
Evacuation Day commemorates March 17, 1776, when British troops withdrew from Boston. The breakthrough came when Gen. George Washington fortified Dorchester Heights with artillery hauled from Fort Ticonderoga by Col. Henry Knox, prompting the British evacuation.
The event marked the Continental Army’s first major victory of the Revolutionary War, ending an 11-month siege of Boston and securing the city for the American cause.
The anniversary also traditionally falls on St. Patrick’s Day, a pairing that has shaped Boston’s celebrations for decades and was marked again with a combined parade in South Boston last weekend.
The ceremony Tuesday began at St. Augustine Chapel and Cemetery, where participants gathered for Mass in the 1818 building before forming a procession that moved through South Boston toward Dorchester Heights, the hill where colonial forces positioned artillery overlooking the harbor. A monument there, recently renovated through a $37 million project, has reopened to the public.
Ronald White of Milton, dressed in colonial attire, stood with reenactors firing replica muskets in the church’s graveyard following the service and said the anniversary carries personal meaning.
A member of the New Hampshire Sons of the American Revolution, he traces his lineage to an ancestor who fought in the war. His eyes teared up Tuesday talking about how inspired he feels by the nation’s founders.
“To think that 250 years ago Henry Knox made such a courageous stand, I get choked up thinking about it,” White said. “They really were going up against a force — it was kind of a suicidal idea to stand up against Great Britain. And we did it. Here we are remembering it.”
Richard Vige, who lives in a Boston suburb, said he came to Dorchester Heights for the first time to mark the 250th anniversary, despite a lifelong interest in American history.
“I’ve always been interested in history, really since grade school,” he said. “I’ve visited many of the sites along the Freedom Trail, but I had never been here before. I wanted to take advantage of the 250th to see what was going on.”
He said attending the commemoration offered a chance to reflect on how far the country has come since its founding — from a cluster of colonies along the Atlantic to a nation of more than 340 million people.
Greta Gaffin, a Boston University theology student studying American religious history, said the Catholic service struck her as historically ironic.
Holding a Catholic Mass to mark the anniversary is a scene the nation’s founders might not have imagined. Colonial Massachusetts long restricted Catholic worship, and churches did not take root in Boston until after the Revolution, as religious freedoms expanded and Irish immigration reshaped the city.
“I’m here because I think having a Catholic Mass in honor of Evacuation Day is conceptually absurd,” she said. “They would have hated this — I had to see it.
“And I love parades," she added.
Anti-Catholic sentiment was widespread in colonial New England, though it had begun to shift by the Revolutionary War, when the American cause relied in part on Catholic France. The Quebec Act, which protected Catholicism in neighboring Quebec, was seen by some colonists as a threat and is reflected in grievances in the Declaration of Independence.
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