The Social World of Revolutionary New England

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This panel highlights social institutions in eighteenth century New England. Nicole Breault’s research centers on Bostonian watchmen who walked the streets at night to monitor for signs of fire, distress, and disorder. Through night constables’ reports, orders governing watches, town records, acts of the General Court, and justice of the peace records, Breault’s paper examines local-level police training prior to the professionalization of law enforcement and more broadly, quotidian acquisitions of legal knowledge in early America. Christopher Walton’s work examines how Congregational clergy in the Connecticut Valley ministered to their communities through suffering during the American Revolution. As the religious community dealt with sickness and death locally, it learned to respond piously to loss at the battlefront. Through suffering, religion became personal as individuals took solace in religious truth and cultivated piety.