The Bloodless Revolution
Shots may have been heard ‘round the world in April of 1775. But an earlier, lesser-known contretemps in Worcester occurred without a single shot fired. On September 6, 1774, 4,622 militiamen, half the male population in Worcester County, ran off a dozen British-appointed court officials by lining both sides of Main Street for a quarter mile, making the officials walk the gauntlet and vocally renounce their allegiance to the King. Massachusetts’ military governor Thomas Gage called in British troops and first sent spies to determine the best place to send them. Not Worcester, the spies reported. Gage sent the troops to Concord instead.
Free at Last – and First
In 1781, 28-year-old Quock Walker, the son of Ghanaian- born slaves, gained his freedom two years later when his attorney Levi Lincoln, Sr., defended him on the stipulation that ‘All men are born free and equal’ under the newly enacted Massachusetts Constitution. The verdicts led to the end of slavery in Massachusetts, and later, the country.
Have to Start Somewhere
The first National Political Women’s Rights Convention was held in Worcester’s Brinley Hall in 1850. More than 1,000 attendees from 11 different states rallied to defend women’s rights to own property, to vote, and to seek higher education. Noted abolitionist Abby Kelley Foster was a keynote speaker. It would take 70 years hence for women to get the right to vote.