“A TRAGEDY (Not acted here these seventy-eight years)”

On 1 Feb 1770, a curious notice appeared in the Boston Chronicle, the twice-weekly newspaper published by Scottish immigrants John Mein and John Fleeming.

It read:

Intended speedily to be acted
By a Company of young Tragedians,
A TRAGEDY
(Not acted here these seventy-eight years,)
called the
W I T C H E S,
With many Alterations and Improvements.

The scenery, decorations, &c. for the exhibition to be entirely new, and supplied by Messieurs J——n, L——, B——d and Company.

N.B. Notice will be given for the Rehersal, by ringing of the Town bells, when the Actors are desired to meet at FUNNY-HALL.—But as the young Gentlemen have lately been interrupted at some of their Rehearsals by the intrusion of Improper persons, it is desired that NONE but such as are to be REAL Actors will attend, and that NO ONE will presume to go behind the scenes without a TICKET from the Managers.

The names of the Managers, to whom Gentlemen may apply, with the Dramatis Personae, will be in a future Advertisement.

This announcement was fake news, which is one reason I’m discussing it on 1 April. But the item also carried a serious political message that genteel Boston readers of the day would have recognized immediately.

The item used phrasing for theatrical entertainments that often appeared in newspapers from outside New England. Since theater was illegal in Massachusetts, right away this ad had an edge.

The title of the putative play, “the WITCHES,” and the reference to “seventy-eight years” ago were a clear allusion to the witch trials of 1792, an embarrassing episode in Massachusetts history.

The gentlemen said to be furnishing the sets, “Messieurs J——n, L——, B——d and Company,” were William Jackson, Theophilus Lillie, John Bernard, and the other shopkeepers defying the non-importation committee that winter.

“Funny Hall” was clearly a disdainful reference to Faneuil Hall, seat of the town government. The “Town bells” referred to the customary way of gathering a crowd—either to fight a fire or, as this item hints, to start a riot.

In sum, this item in the form of a theatrical advertisement was satirizing the town’s non-importation committee and its attempts to put pressure on the merchants who were refusing to cooperate. The last line, promising to name the managers of this enterprise, echoed how the Boston Chronicle published a lot of embarrassing and insulting material about the Whigs in 1769.

When I first read this item, I interpreted the “company of young Tragedians” as a reference to the schoolboy picketers outside importers’ shops. But it actually appeared a week before the first picket line was reported at Jackson’s Sign of the Brazen Head.

It seems unlikely that Mein and Fleeming were privy to the Whigs’ plans for those picket lines. And I read the evidence to say the schoolboys’ participation developed over time and was largely self-directed. That means the “young Tragedians” referred to the crowd meeting at Faneuil Hall in January—which would have gotten the Whigs even angrier.