Manuscript
Page: Front

Arrest Warrant for Job Shattuck

Page: Front | Back
Date: November 28, 1786
Creator: BAM
About this artifact

The Court of Common Pleas for Middlesex County was scheduled to convene in Concord on September 12, 1786. Hundreds of men calling themselves Regulators arrived determined to stop the court from sitting. One of them was Job Shattuck of Groton, who signed a message on behalf of the assembled Regulators. From that point on, the Massachusetts government identified Shattuck as a principle leader in what it believed was a budding insurrection. In November, the Massachusetts government passed an act suspending Habeas Corpus, allowing them to arrest and detain without trial any person "whom they shall suspect is unfriendly to government." In the same month, Governor Bowdoin and his council issued this arrest warrant for Joh Shattuck, based on information they had received that he and three other men named in the warrant were a threat to the "Safety of the Commonwealth." Severely wounded while resisting capture by the mounted militia company sent to apprehended him, Job Shattuck was jailed in Boston.

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Courtesy Massachusetts State Archives, Boston, MA