A description of a storm in Boston in 1743 also gives us a very vivid description of what Boston’s waterfront was like in the 1740s, when Boston was a thriving city, well established for more than a century, but still a British possession. Note also the ratio of deaths to births, indicating that Boston—like every other city of the era—could not survive without immigration.
Saturday 22. Last night arose a violent N.E. storm, which continued all the next Day;——at Noon the Wind blew in prodigious Gusts, with the greatest fierceness, and which over-flow’d most of our Wharves; and came up into several Streets higher than has been known for above these Twenty Years past; so that vast Damage was done to the Wharves and Shipping; some Vessels that got loose, were drove a shore higher up than ever was known before, and several; small Vessels were cast upon the Wharves, and Boats floated into the Street: A Store-House with Salt was carried off a Wharff near the Long Wharff, & with a Sloop was drove quite up into a Ship-Yard. Great Quantities of Staves, Shingles, Boards, Plank, Timber, Tar, Turpentine, Cord-Wood, &c. were floated off the Wharves and scatter’d about all Parts of the Shore: The Tide floating into many Houses and Stores, and filling the Cellars, did much Damage to what was therein. ’Tis impossible to enumerate all the Particulars of the terrible Effects of this Storm, or estimate the Damage sustain’d by it.
That same Day a Boat with four Men in it over-set below the Castle, and they were all drowned.
Burials in the Town of Boston this Month, 47 Whites, 5 Blacks. Baptized in the Churches 29.
——The American Magazine, October, 1743.