Boston Police Department
Wells, Donna M. / Evans, Foreword By Commissioner Paul F.![Boston Police Department](https://support.digitalhusky.com/media/annotations/sorted/218/2182769/CHSBZCOP032182769.jpg)
The Boston Police Department was formally organized in 1854, but the department traces its origins to the establishment of a night watch of six men and an officer in 1631. At a town meeting in 1701, watchmen were instructed to be "on duty from ten o'clock till broad daylight. . . . They are to go about silently with watch bills, not using any bell, and no watchman to smoke tobacco while walking their rounds, and when they see occasion, to call...