Scholars and media outlets routinely cite Boston as creating the nation’s first municipal law enforcement agency in 1838, which is technically correct.22 However, over a decade prior on October 2, 1823, the citizens of Pineville, South Carolina, had met in the town library to “devise a plan for apprehending or dispersing a gang of desperate Runaways.”23 The group immediately began collecting money from the town’s citizens to solve its maroon problem.
