With a bitterly divided nation plunged into the War of 1812, a fiery young Federalist editor named Alexander Hanson risked his life to defend a newspaper that dared express unpopular views. His words provoked a violent standoff that crippled the city of Baltimore and left Hanson beaten within an inch of his life. This little-known episode in American history - complete with a midnight jailbreak, bloodthirsty mobs and unspeakable acts of torture - helped shape the course of war, the Federalist Party and the nation’s very notion of the freedom of the press. Josh Cutler’s history of the Mobtown Massacre offers a lesson in liberty that reverberates today.
Josh S. Cutler is an attorney and state legislator representing the Sixth Plymouth District of Massachusetts, which includes the town of Hanson. Cutler is a graduate of Skidmore College (BA), Suffolk Law (JD) and the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth (MPP in environmental policy). He is also the author of “When the Press Really Was Under Attack: Alexander Hanson and the 1812 ‘Mobtown’ Massacre,” published by the New England Journal of History (Spring 2018).