The 1768 Landing

The 1768 Landing was the arrival of British regulars to occupy Boston, at noon on Saturday 1 October 1768, when the troops came ashore on Long Wharf and formed up at its head, where it met King Street, today's State Street at Merchants Row. Warships from Halifax had anchored in the harbour the day before. Paul Revere's engraving of the scene records that the 14th and 29th Regiments, a detachment of the 59th and a train of artillery with two cannon landed on the Long Wharf and marched up King Street with colours flying. The Essex Gazette reported about 1,000 men. The 14th marched with drums beating to the Town House, now the Old State House, and waited there for the 29th; both went on to Boston Common, where the 29th made camp. The troops had been sent after the customs riots of that June, and Revere's print, sold in 1770 and dedicated to the Earl of Hillsborough, the secretary of state for America, was made as propaganda: its caption has the troops marching with insolent parade beneath the town's church steeples. The detachment of the 59th and the artillery were quartered in warehouses on Griffin's and Wheelwright's wharves. Long Wharf itself had been built out from the foot of King Street from about 1710, 1,586 feet into the harbour with berths for up to 50 vessels; landfill has since buried its first stretch, so the head where the troops formed up now lies inland. The occupation that began on the wharf lasted until 17 March 1776, when about 120 ships carried the army and its Loyalist followers from the waterfront to Halifax.