The only physical trace of the convent’s existence.

By William C. Shelton

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

The part of East Somerville where the avenues are named for states was once a high hill with a convent atop it. Both are gone.

Ploughed Hill, later renamed Mount Benedict, was razed to fill in the Middlesex Canal. Before that, an anti-Catholic mob burned the convent in 1834.

With Arizona’s controversial crackdown now before the Supreme Court, illegal immigration is again in the news. A few years back I wrote a series about illegal immigrants. Conservatives were unhappy with the facts that I presented, and liberals were unhappy with my proposed solution.

I don’t want to revisit either here. Rather, I’m interested in the suspicion, fear, and resentment that is so often felt toward people who are different from us. Every new ethnic group that arrived here over the last century and a half experienced it. And then many reproduced it.

I believe that it is bred into human beings, going back to when our ancestors were antagonistic bands of hominids. Some people act on these feelings, some don’t, and some rise above them to see that what we have in common is more important than our differences. Events surrounding the convent burning illustrate each of these reactions.

The Catholic order of St. Ursula was founded in 1535 to educate girls and care for the sick and needy. In 1826 the Boston Diocese erected on Ploughed Hill the first convent school in New England. The Ursulines taught the basics, plus astronomy, philosophy, botany, chemistry, music, and may other subjects. Coming from both Catholic and Protestant homes, their students reported that the nuns made no attempts to influence their religious beliefs.

Many people who had immigrated to New England over the previous century and a half had brought with them attitudes shaped by Western Europe’s violent Protestant-Catholic conflicts. Sensationalist literature and a few Protestant clergymen further promoted suspicion and mistrust. Six Months in a Convent, for example, told a false story about its author, Rebecca Reed, being held captive by nuns.

The summer of 1834 brought day after day of sweltering heat. Elizabeth Harrison was a convent nun. Teaching 14 classes per day in the heat, and serving as the Assistant Superior, she became “deranged,” overcome with a “nervous excitement or fever.” On July 28th, she left the convent and wandered in the nearby woods.

Edward Cutter, whose farm was adjacent to the convent grounds, was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He encountered Elizabeth and took her to the home of a former convent student in Cambridge. The next evening the Bishop brought her back to the convent, where she recovered.

But local papers published fabricated stories. The Boston Mercantile Journal reported that she had been kidnapped and was being held against her will. Many people conflated her story with that of Rebecca Reed.

In early August, anonymous posters and handbills appeared spreading rumors and threats. One read, “Leave not one stone upon another of that curst nunnery that prostitutes female virtue under the garb of holy religion. When Bonaparte opened the nunneries of Europe, he found crowds of infant skulls!!”

On Sunday August 10th, Congregationalist minister Lyman Beecher gave anti-Catholic sermons in three different locations. He believed that the Pope planned to overthrow the U.S. government, and that Catholic educational institutions were a means of organizing the conspiracy.

The next day, six Selectmen visited the convent and “examined from the highest apartment to the cellar—looking into bureaus and even paint boxes.” Elizabeth Harrison told them firmly that she wished to remain there. They promised to report to the newspapers that everything was “in good order and nothing appears to be the least objectionable.”

But agitators had been inflaming small groups for days. The Boston Globe portrayed their leader, an imposing brick maker named John Buzzell, as a folk hero akin to Paul Bunyon.

Early that evening his followers gathered, drinking and sharing rumors about dungeons, torture chambers, and forced conversions. At about 8:00 they coalesced into a mob and marched to the nunnery.

The Mother Superior came to a window and chided the crowd. She told them that the Selectmen had found nothing amiss. One of the Selectmen was present and confirmed this.

The mob went back down the hill, but formed a plan to “tear the buildings down.” Buzzell and others pulled three barrels of tar from a nearby twine factory and ignited them. He calculated that a blaze on the hill would bring firefighters from Boston, Medford, and Cambridge, who would help them destroy the building.

He was right. Boston Engine 13 was used as a protective base from which the rioters hurled stones against the windows. One, named Henry Buck, broke down the door with a ripped-off fence stake.

They entered the cloister and ransacked students’ and nuns’ possessions. Some pushed a piano out of an upper-story window and then brought musical instruments into the yard and smashed them.

By now, the convent was surrounded by thousands of people. A Marvin Macy, pretended to be an auctioneer, soliciting bids on looted books. Those that were “sold” were thrown into a fire.

Eventually the mob set the building ablaze. Firefighters from surrounding communities made no attempt to quench the inferno.

Students, nuns, and assistants fled through the rear of the grounds, where Edward Cutter and other farmers escorted them to safety. The Mother Superior and some of her students went to the Adams-Magoun house on Winter Hill, which still stands.

The next day the Boston mayor and a number of prominent citizens met in Faneuil Hall. They formed a committee to investigate, arrest, and prosecute the riot’s perpetrators.

At the trial, the judge said that the rioters had “waged war against political liberty, the sacred rights of property, and religious charity.” He told the jury “the just and enlightened everywhere will look to the justice of the country…to erase the foul disgrace.”

But they acquitted all of the defendants except for Marvin Macy, who was given a life sentence. Many citizens, including the Bishop and the Mother Superior, petitioned for leniency. A few months later, Macy was released on probation.

The Legislature approved a bill to appropriate $10,000 to indemnify the Church, and then voted it down. The Church never rebuilt the convent. A small marker outside the East Somerville Library is the only memento of its existence.

Since the 1990 racial conflict that temporarily closed Somerville High School, our city’s leaders have worked to teach tolerance and affirm diversity. We can best commemorate the Ursulines by embracing both as we encounter newcomers.