Due to the destroying angel hovering over the city, a day of prayer is needed so that we can prepare to meet our God.'' - Cotton Mather, 1721, April 22, 1721: Boston was one of the largest cities in colonial America, with a population of 12,000 Puritans. The Puritans, making up the general population, were strict and took their beliefs very seriously, and unless you wanted to be hanged, whipped, or exiled, your best option was to conform and keep any divergent beliefs to yourself. . Of course, some heretics did not follow this: in 1651 in Boston, Obadiah Holmes was imprisoned and publicly whipped for being a Baptist, Anne Hutchison and John Wheelwright were banished from Boston for expressing dissenting views, and Mary Dyer was hanged for being a Baptist. Quaker and he still entered Boston several times to express his dissatisfaction with the anti-Quaker law. For the people of Boston, this treatment of those who were different was normal; religion was an important part of their daily lives, a reason for living, an idea that seeped into different facets of their behavior: hard work, rigid morals and education, all of which helped them build a stable society on which they could grow and develop. try to please the Lord; and anyone who threatened this deserved to be punished. Bostonians liked to believe that they had a special connection with God unlike anyone else, and they were proud of it. God was the ultimate answer in times of struggle as well as times of prosperity; To the people of Boston, God mattered more than anything else. At this time, Boston was still taking shape. It had more intellectuals than most other colonies; there were philosophers, inventors, eleven doctors and one doctor with a certified degree. These people worked hard to improve Boston, coming up with new cures, inventions, and ideas that helped expand people's way of thinking (while of course adhering to Puritan guidelines). On this particular day in April, the HMS Seahorse, a British naval vessel returning from the Caribbean, was waiting in Boston Harbor. The ship was inspected, given the go-ahead to dock in Boston, and the sailors entered the city, passing printing houses, homes, and various stores. As the men invariably searched for a place to rest, eat and drink, a sailor among them began to scratch the sores growing in his mouth. December 13, 1706: It was very cold in Boston that year.