Americans have sometimes denounced and always patronized prostitutes; on some occasions they have rioted against them. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the whorehouse riot was a common occurrence. One of the first took place in Boston in 1737, when crowds demolished several houses. New York City was the scene of one bloody battle between would-be smiters of evil and the defenders of a whorehouse, in which several were wounded in 1793, and another battle in 1799. In Boston over 2,000 rioters tore down houses of prostitution in 1825 and beat up officers who tried to intervene. There were assaults in Lenox, Pennsylvania, in 1829, in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1831, and in Troy, New York, in 1850. In Chicago in 1857, elite volunteer companies led by Mayor John Wentworth burnt down a whole district, and in the same year half a dozen houses were destroyed in Detroit. In 1825 there were three successive riots in Portland, Maine; after each, the ladies relocated and recommenced business—perhaps, since the town was so small, with some of the very people who had lately demolished their houses. On the third occasion the ladies were defended. A gunfight took place in which one man was killed and several wounded.
The following account is taken from the Portland Eastern Argus, November 11, 1825.
We are again called upon to record the proceedings of a disgraceful riot, making the third which has occurred in this town, in the space of little more than a year, and the last of a more atrocious and aggravated character than either of the former, inasmuch as deadly weapons were used and life taken. If these affairs are suffered to go on at this rate, Portland will soon receive and deserve the name of mob-town. It is high time something effectual was done to put a stop to occurrences of this kind. If we have laws sufficient to preserve order in the community, let them be enforced; if we have not, let application be made to the Legislature for the enactment of laws of a more severe and efficacious nature. We have generally been in the habit of considering the standard of public morals in this town as high and tense as in any of our seaport towns, and are at a loss to account for the repetition of scenes which indicate a want of moral energy in the community, and which are universally condemned, though not prevented.… Every good citizen should make it his business, and be willing to raise his voice and his hand against these enormous outrages upon the peace and security of society. It is said most of the offenders in this last riot were foreigners, principally Irishmen. Be it so, it does not remove the stain from the reputation of the town; public peace has been outraged, no matter by whom.…
These outrageous riots and highanded breaches of the peace have grown out of a well-meant, but ill advised step of some individuals about a year ago to do what they no doubt thought a good deed. There was … a nest of little, mean, filthy boxes, of that description commonly called houses of ill-fame, tenanted by the most loathsome and vicious of the human species, and made a common resort for drunken sailors and the lowest off-scouring of society. These buildings in the heart of the town were an eye-sore to the neighborhood, and even the owners of some of the buildings wished them torn away.… Instead of taking the proper steps of the law to abate these nuisances, a company of laboring people, truckmen, boys &c. understanding the feelings of the owners and the wishes of the neighbors, assembled in the evening, turned out the tenants and tore the buildings to the ground, while some hundreds of citizens stood looking on and sanctioning the whole proceeding by their presence and their silence. The operators in this transaction becoming a little warm and excited, grew over zealous in the good work and repaired to other parts of the town and demolished other buildings of a like character. The affair passed off and but little was said or done about it. But the example was left to work its effect upon the minds of lower classes of people, the idle, the mischievous, and the vicious, and having learnt their lesson they began last spring to put it in practice. It was a kind of sport that had peculiar attractions for idle roaring boys and raw Irishmen; and the watchword being past, a throng assembled one night and tore several more houses of ill-fame, all for public good, mind ye; till coming to a long 2 story house in Crabtree’s wharf, which contained several families, and which proved so firmly built that they were unable to pull it down, and in their zeal for serving the public they set it on fire, and the whole town was alarmed in the dead of night by the ringing of bells and the cry of fire. It was now thought to be rather a serious matter and the feelings of the citizens were very much excited. The selectmen called a town meeting, and a committee was appointed to investigate the subject and to commence legal prosecutions. Accordingly several were arrested, examined, and bound over for trial. One black man, not being able to procure bonds, was committed to jail for a few months until the Common Pleas was in session. All of them were finally discharged without any penalty, and it was thought, the law had shown its teeth at the rioters, they would be deterred from a repetition of their offenses.
But time has proved the opinion fallacious.… On Saturday night last, the reformers attacked a two story house on Fore Street occupied by a colored barber by the name of Gray. Gray had been convicted at the Common Pleas Court of keeping a house of ill-fame, and had appealed to the Supreme Court which is now in session, and in which he has also been convicted the present week. But the mob chose to render more speedy justice than the laws would do and accordingly on Saturday night they threw a few rocks into Gray’s house, broke the windows, &c., but either from the want of sufficient forces or from meeting more resistance than they expected, they desisted till Monday evening, when they renewed their attack with increased force. In the meantime Gray had armed himself with guns and other weapons. He and his family, with some others remained in the house. In the course of the assault, the mob fired guns into the house, and guns were fired from the house upon the mob. Which fired first we are not informed. One man in the street, an Englishman by the name of Joseph Fuller, was killed almost instantly and six or eight others were wounded, some severely. After this the crowd soon dispersed. We examined the house on Tuesday morning, and found the windows mostly stove in, rocks scattered about the floors and lead shot in the plastering opposite the windows.