Marriage, death and murder.

In August 1653 an Act of Parliament ordained that Banns of Marriage should be published three times on three seperate Sundays in the church or, if the parties desired, it in the Market Place on three market days, between the hours of eleven and two.

It was in January 1654 that the first banns of marriage were published in Boston Market Place, although before that marriages had been solemnised before a magistrate. The banns of marriage were published in Boston between 150 couples in 1656, 48 proclaimed in the church and 102 in the Market Place.
1657 saw 104 in the Market Place and 31 in church and in 1658 the Market Place 108 and the church 52.
The last recorded proclamation in the Market Place was on 1st. July 1659. It is also recorded that banns were published in Boston Market Place between parties residing at a considerable distance from the town - Spalding, Horncastle, Louth, Leicester and Warwick.

The Church and Market Place, Boston.

 

Here are a few more intriguing entries on Boston's records.

1672. William Pawmer died distracted in prison.
1676. Orlin Bradley drowned in the church well.
1681. Thomas Brown slain by a beer cart.
1770. Robert Harrold of Friskney, killed in a fray. (see below)
1737. Patrick Gregory, a mariner, killed by a fall from the south west pinnacle of the steeple.
1748. Richard Everett, a joiner, deposited in a tomb in his own garden in a coffin made by himself.

The Oxford Magazine for July 1770 recorded that, "Last Wednesday ended the assizes at Lincoln, when James Kearney, a private dragoon in Bland's regiment, received sentence of death, for the wilful murder of Robert Harrold, of Friikney, in that county. The murder was perpetrated at Boston. He was executed last Thursday, and afterwards his body was delivered to the surgeons for dissection."