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Revision as of 18:03, 4 March 2006 by 65.249.140.65 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)March 17 in Suffolk County, Massachusetts is Evacuation Day, an official holiday commemorating the evacuation of the city of Boston by British forces (see Siege of Boston or American Revolutionary War). Evacuation Day is also observed in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Somerville, Massachusetts. Schools and government offices are closed on the following Monday in observance.
On March 17, 1776 the 11-month seige of Boston ended when the Continental Army, under George Washington, placed captured cannon from Ft. Ticonderoga onto Dorchester Heights in South Boston. With a clear view of the city and the narrow harbor where the Royal Navy's ships were docked behind it, the Americans had General Howe's garrison dead-to-rights. To prevent what would have been an inevidable slaughter of his troops, Howe agreed to retreat to Nova Scotia via his ships without setting the city on fire as he left.
Boston was one of the most important ports in the New World and, ironically, one of the most defensable (there is only a single channel into the harbor which is ringed with islands). That the Americans were able to drive off several thousand hardened troops and 1,100 loyalsts with only a few warning shots fired and no loss of life or property was a major accomplishment and was Washington's first victory of the war. It was also a huge morale bost for the new country, as the city where the rebellion against England started was the first to be liberated. Boston was never attacked again.
After a failed movement in 1876, the holiday was finally proclaimed on the 125th anniversary in 1901. Not conicidentally, this time period marks the ascendancy of Irish political power in Boston. March 17 is also St. Patrick's Day, giving Boston's large Irish and Irish-descended population an additional reason to celebrate... and a day off.
For other uses of the term, see Evacuation Day.
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