Boston Commemorates Evacuation Day at Dorchester Heights in South Boston on March 17, 2023

 

The 247th Anniversary of the occupation of Dorchester Heights and the Evacuation of Boston takes place on Friday, March 17, 2023 from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. The event occurs at the Dorchester Heights National Historic Park, 95 G Street in South Boston.

Organizers of the event include the National Parks of Boston, South Boston Citizens Association, the South Boston Historical Society, Revolution 250 and the City of Boston.

This annual event marks the historic occasion when General George Washington and the colonial troops forced the British Army to leave town in March, 1776.  Read about Dorchester Heights from the National Park Service, which oversees the property. 

The British presence in Boston began in October, 1768, when 4,000 British troops arrived in Boston after local citizens objected to a series of British taxes on the residents. Their presence led to a number of physical confrontations, starting with the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770, when five Bostonians - including Irishman Patrick Carr - were shot dead by British soldiers.

The tension escalated and came to a head in April 1775 during the Battles of Lexington and Concord, followed by the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775.

Major General Henry Knox, whose parents came from Ireland, hatched a plan to force the British out of Boston. The 25 year old Bostonian suggested to General George Washington that the colonial troops retrieve the cannons that had been captured at Fort Ticonderoga in New York, and wheel them 300 miles to Boston.   His plan was to position the cannons atop Dorchester Heights in South Boston and aim them at the British fleet in Boston Harbor.

Knox set off with a group of men and captured 59 cannons in December and dragged them across the frozen landscape of western Massachusetts, finally arriving in Cambridge on January 24 to deliver them to General Washington.

A formal, annual commemoration of Evacuation Day began in 1876, and it was immediately twinned with St. Patrick's Day, which celebrated Ireland's patron saint.   The Boston Globe wrote on March 17, 1876: 

 

"Saint Patrick's Day and Evacuation Day certainly have this in common, that they illustrate the spirit of that love of Liberty which, while successfully repelling foreign aggression, extends its sympathies to all who seek...constitutional freedom."

Here is the 2023 Evacuation Day schedule, as reported by Rev250:

9 a.m. - A brief mass at the church of St. Augustine

9:40 a.m. - A short parade from St. Augustine to Dorchester Heights NHP

10:15 a.m. - Color Guard posts the colors and the program on the Heights begins.  The event ends with a salute of musket fire from the Henry Knox Guard and the Lexington Minute Men. 

Following the salute, taps are played and a wreath laid at the Veteran's Memorial.

Read more about the Irish-American role in the American Revolution in the Irish Echo newspaper.