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By 1770, the citizens of Boston refused to pay import taxes on many British products. Leading
merchants conspired together and ostracized any person that continued to sell boycotted products.
Merchant Theophilus Lillie ignored the boycott. On February 22nd 1770, Ebenezer Richardson, a Loyalist
informer, attempted to destroy an effigy outside Lillie's shop. Richardson caused a great scene and a mob gathered,
driving him to his house. Debris was thrown back and forth between Richardson and the crowd, and the mob began to violently storm the house. Richardson fired several shots at random from his window,
killing eleven year old Christopher Snider.
There was an immense funeral parade from the
Liberty Tree to the cemetery
for Christopher Snider. Posters were distributed throughout the town implying his
death must be avenged. Popular anger over Snider's death culminated two weeks later with the
Boston Massacre on
March 5th. Snider's death was a significant factor in initiating armed conflict with Great Britain.
A velvet pall was placed on Christopher Snider's coffin, which read:
The serpent is lurking in the grass.
The fatal dart is thrown.
Innocence is nowhere safe.
A bill was posted about Ebenezer Richardson, with excerpts below:
Injured Boston now awake,
While I a true confession make,
Of my notorious sins and guilt
As well the harmless blood I've spilt.
...
But what's all that to this last crime,
In sending Snider out of time!
This cuts my heart, this frights me most;
O help me Lord, I see his ghost.
Theophilus Lillie wrote that the mobs of Boston were contrary to any law abiding governing body. That he would rather be ruled by a single tyrant, than by a hundred. Ebenezer Richardson was arrested and found guilty of murder. He was
later pardoned by the King after spending two years in jail.
The image above is the Genius of Liberty trampling a serpent relating to the Paul Revere House.
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