Join us as we welcome Josh Cutler to launch his new book, ​The Boston Gentlemen's Mob: Maria Chapman and the Abolition Riot of 1835. A book sale and signing will follow.

Violent mobs, racial unrest, attacks on the press--it's the fall of 1835 and the streets of Boston are filled with bankers, merchants and other "gentlemen of property and standing" angered by an emergent antislavery movement. They break up a women's abolitionist meeting and seize newspaper publisher William Lloyd Garrison. While city leaders stand by silently, a small group of women had the courage to speak out. Author Josh Cutler tells the story of the Gentlemen's Mob through the eyes of four key participants: antislavery reformer Maria Chapman; pioneering schoolteacher Susan Paul; the city's establishment mayor, Theodore Lyman; and Wendell Phillips, a young attorney who wanders out of his office to watch the spectacle. The day's events forever changed the course of the abolitionist movement.​

​Josh S. Cutler is​ a graduate of Skidmore College, Suffolk Law, and the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth (M.P.P.), Cutler is an attorney and former newspaper editor. He is currently in his fifth term in the Mass. House of Representatives, representing the Sixth Plymouth District, and serves as House chairman of the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development. Cutler is also the author of ​​Mobtown Massacre: Alexander Hanson and the Baltimore Newspaper War of 1812. When he’s not hot on the trail of 19th century abolitionist firebrands or Federalist agitators, Cutler enjoys photography, traveling, hiking, and spending time with his children.

​This event is part of the Weymouth History Lecture Series, co-sponsored by the Weymouth Public Libraries and The Weymouth Historical Commission. Supporting partners include Weymouth 400, The Abigail Adams Historical Society, and Weymouth Historical Society.

If you would like to buy a copy of the book, please bring cash or a check. They will be $20.