145 



from the contemporary journals of the period. Now that 

 vaccination has so nearly eliminated this from our list 

 of terrors, it is not easy to reproduce the scene of panic 

 it created. Men shunned one another ; tradesmen could 

 with difficulty be persuaded to bring the necessaries of 

 life to market, and sacred family ties seemed unable at 

 times to bear a strain too great for human nature. Daily 

 bulletins from Boards of Selectmen announced the lowest 

 number of cases which could from day to day be charged 

 against their respective precincts ; and to allay those hid- 

 eous suspicions which panic engenders in feverish times, 

 rewards were offered for evidence to convict unknown 

 persons of maliciously spreading the contagion about the 

 streets. 



The year 1773-4 was probably the most crowded single 

 3 r ear in our local history. That year witnessed the last 

 session of the Provincial Assembly ; the first session of 

 the Provincial Congress ; one following close upon the 

 other in the Town House at Salem ; 15 and in the midst 

 of this momentous session the first great fire in Salem 

 occurred, consuming the Tabernacle Meeting House, 16 

 the Custom House, fourteen shops and 1 eight dwellings, 

 besides injuring and greatly imperiling the Town House 

 itself. It was the same year in which Thomas Hutch- 

 inson quit the executive chair of the province for Eng- 

 land, and Thomas Gage, the first military governor, 

 succeeded him and established military headquarters, 

 with two companies of the 64th regiment of the line, at 

 the Collins Farm, in Danvers, whitening the Neck soon 

 after with the tents of the 69th regiment from Halifax. 

 Timothy Pickering was twenty-nine years of age, that 



16 Which stood on the corner of Essex and Washington streets, near the 

 southern parapet of the tunnel. 



18 Which stood on Essex street, opposite Barton Square. 



ESSEX INST. BULLETIN, VOL. XII. 10 



