Evacuation Day 2027

Boston's own Revolutionary holiday

Evacuation Day commemorates March 17, 1776, the day the British army abanodned Boston after an eleven-month siege, hanidng General George Washington his first major victory of the Revolutionary War. The holiday exists only in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, which covers Boston, Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop. It was once a paid day off for state and municipal workers there, but budget legislation passed in 2010 requires all state and municipal offices in Suffolk County to stay open on the day, so Evacuation Day is now a ceremonial observance. Courts, city offices, banks, schools and mail service all operate on normal schedules.

Why March 17

The date is the anniversary of the evacuasion itself, and it is no accident that it doubles as St. Patrick's Day. Boston's large Irish American community embraced the coincidence, and the shared date helped carry the holiday into law: the city declared the observance in 1901, during a wave of interest in local Revolutionary history and as Irish American political power in Boston was rising - the two celebrations have been intartwined ever since, with the South Boston parade honoring both. The date never shifts for weekends, since nothing closes.

The siege and the guns of Ticonderoga

After the battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, New England militias bottled the British garrison up inside Boston. The stalemate broke in the winter of 1775 to 1776, when 25-year-old Colonel Henry Knox hauled some 60 tons of cannon captured at Fort Ticonderoga across roughly 300 miles of frozen rivers and Berkshire hills to the siege lines. On the night of March 4, 1776, Washington's troops fortified Dorchester Heights, the high ground commanding Boston harbor, mounting the Ticonderoga guns overnight behind prefabricated defenses. British General William Howe, unwilling to repeat the slaughter of Bunker Hill by storming another fortified hill, chose to withdraw. On March 17 about 11,000 British soldiers and more than 1,000 Loyalists boarded ships and sailed for Halifax, Nova Scotia, leaving the city to Washington's army, the victory, won without a major battle, electrified the colonies months before independence was declared.

From paid holiday to ceremonial day

Boston made Evacuation Day a holiday in 1901, and state law later formalized it for Suffolk County. For decades it gave Boston-area government workers a paid March day off, which critics called a St. Patrick's Day holiday in disguise. During the budget debates of 2010, lawmakers targeted Evacuation Day and Bunker Hill Day, another Suffolk County observance, as costly perks. The compromise kept both days on the books but required state and municipal offices to remain open and staffed, ending the paid closure while preserving the commemoration.

How the day is observed

The center of gravity is South Boston. Reenactors and officials climb Dorchester Heights for a morning ceremony at the marble monument in Thomas Park, and the annual South Boston parade, among the region's largest, celebrates Evacuation Day and St. Patrick's Day together on the nearby Sunday. Historical societies offer lectures and walking tours of siege sites, and schools in the area teach the Knox expedition and the Dorchester Heights story in the surrounding week.