The company also resisted establishing a police force until 1658, when, partly inspired by fears of Indian trouble, the magistrates organized a rattle watch. A captain and eight men received twenty-four stivers a night (plus an allowance for firewood) to walk around town and “call out how late it is, at all corners of the streets from nine O’Clock in the evening untill the reveille beat in the morning.” Given the absence of streetlights, keeping a lookout for crime or fire wasn’t the easiest of tasks. If the watchmen discovered anything amiss, they were to use their rattles to rouse the
...more
