Fire in the Sky over Boston

A 1719 Pamphlet, a Famous Astronomer, and the Fireball That Shook England

Introduction

On the night of Thursday 19 March 1719, the sky over Lincolnshire tore open. In the market town of Boston, hundreds of people stopped in their tracks as a blinding light streaked from the south-west, illuminating the streets as brightly as noon and filling the air with what witnesses described as the smell of sulphur. A woman crossing the churchyard was knocked to the ground by the accompanying lightning. A man on horseback between Swinstead and Dunnington felt his horse tremble beneath him as streams of fire seemed to fill the entire sky. Within days, a small pamphlet was rushed to the printers in nearby Stamford, Lincolnshire — price: two pence — breathlessly recounting the terror and wonder of what the town had witnessed.

The document reproduced in full in this post is that pamphlet. Entitled A Strange and Wonderful Account of the Appearance of a Fiery Meteor in the Air, it is one of the earliest surviving popular eyewitness accounts of what we would now call a bolide meteor event. It is a remarkable time capsule: part news report, part religious sermon, part proto-scientific record. Its anonymous author collects testimony from named witnesses — a customs officer, a millworker, a vicar, a frightened woman at the Angel inn — and weaves them into a narrative designed both to inform and to exhort its readers to repentance.

What the pamphlet’s author could not have known was that the event he was describing had been observed across the whole of Northern Europe, and that the most celebrated astronomer in England — Edmond Halley, Secretary to the Royal Society — was simultaneously writing his own account of the very same fireball for publication in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Two pence in Stamford and the summit of British science in London: both were transfixed by the same streak of fire across the same sky.

This introduction sets the pamphlet in its scientific and historical context, explaining what a bolide meteor actually is, how widely the 1719 event was seen, and how differently it was interpreted by a popular audience on the one hand and by the scientific establishment on the other. The original transcription follows, with modernised spelling to aid readability.

A Note on the Date: Why Does the Pamphlet Say “1718-19”?

Readers will notice that the pamphlet gives the date of the event as “Thursday the Nineteenth of March 1718-19.” This double date can seem confusing at first, but it reflects a quirk of the calendar system in use in England at the time.

Until 1752, England used the Julian calendar, in which the legal and ecclesiastical new year began not on 1 January but on 25 March — a date known as Lady Day or the Feast of the Annunciation. This meant that January, February and the first three weeks of March fell in the “old” year, not the new one. So while the fireball occurred on what we would call 19 March 1719, under the old system it was still technically 1718.

To avoid confusion, writers and record-keepers of the period often used a double date for events falling in this awkward gap: they would write “1718/19” or, as here, “1718-19,” to make clear which system they were using. The Philosophical Transactions entry by Edmond Halley uses the same convention: “19th of March 1718/9.”

When Britain finally adopted the Gregorian calendar in September 1752, New Year’s Day was moved to 1 January and eleven days were dropped from the calendar to bring it into alignment with the rest of Europe. People who had been born in “January 1700” suddenly found themselves officially born in “January 1701.” George Washington, for instance, adjusted his birthday from 11 February to 22 February for precisely this reason. Throughout this document, all dates are given in the modern style: the event took place on 19 March 1719.

What Is a Bolide Meteor?

A meteor is the visible streak of light produced when a fragment of rock or metal from space — a meteoroid — enters the Earth’s atmosphere at high speed. Most meteors are tiny and burn up completely, producing what we call shooting stars. A fireball is a much brighter meteor, brighter than the planet Venus in the night sky. A bolide (from the Greek bolis, meaning “missile” or “thrown spear”) is a fireball that explodes with a bright terminal flash, often fragmenting visibly as it does so.

When a large meteoroid enters the atmosphere, it is slowed and heated by friction with the air. A bow shock of compressed, superheated gas forms in front of it, and the heat causes the object to ablate — its outer layers vaporise and stream away, creating the luminous tail so vividly described by witnesses in Boston. As the object travels deeper and encounters denser air, the pressure on its leading face increases until it exceeds the object’s structural strength. At that point it disrupts catastrophically — exploding — releasing its remaining energy in a burst of light and, often, a sonic boom that may be heard minutes later, since sound travels far more slowly than the fireball itself.

The smell of sulphur reported by witnesses in 1719 is consistent with accounts of other bolide events: ablating meteoric material can release sulphurous compounds as it burns, and the “electrophonic” sounds sometimes reported — hissing, crackling — may result from electromagnetic effects. The witnesses who compared the smell to gunpowder were, in a sense, not far wrong: both involve rapid oxidation releasing hot gases.

Bolides bright enough to be seen over a wide area are rare but not exceptional. March falls within what astronomers now recognise as peak fireball season in the northern hemisphere, with sighting rates potentially 10–30% higher around the spring equinox than at other times of year — though exactly why remains debated.

The Scale of the 1719 Event: A Continent-Wide Spectacle

The Boston pamphlet presents the fireball as a local phenomenon — something remarkable that happened to the people of one Lincolnshire town. But the true scale of the event was far greater. According to Robert P. Greg’s authoritative 1860 catalogue of historic meteor events, the 1719 fireball was larger in apparent size than the full Moon, was observed 65 miles above Hereford, and was estimated to have been travelling at around 350 miles per minute. It was visible across the whole of Northern Europe.

In Lincolnshire itself, the object appeared to burst — consistent with a bolide-type fragmentation — at a height of around 70 miles. Estimates of its diameter ran to a mile and a half. These are figures of an extraordinary event by any standard, then or now.

Two Accounts of the Same Fireball: The Pamphlet and Edmond Halley

One of the most striking aspects of this pamphlet is that it was written at exactly the same moment as a very different kind of account of the same event. Edmond Halley — at the time Secretary to the Royal Society, and in 1719 appointed Astronomer Royal on the death of John Flamsteed — published a detailed scientific paper about the March 19th fireball in volume 30 of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, under the title An Account of the Extraordinary Meteor Seen All over England, on the 19th of March 1718/9, With a Demonstration of the Uncommon Height Thereof.

The contrast between these two texts could hardly be more complete, and reading them side by side reveals just how wide the gap between popular and scientific understanding of natural phenomena was in the early eighteenth century — and how rapidly it was beginning to close.

What the Pamphlet Does

The Boston pamphlet is a piece of popular journalism shaped by religious purpose. Its central argument is theological: the fireball is a Token of God’s Anger, sent to warn the wicked and call the faithful to repentance. Natural phenomena are understood as messages — God speaking to men not through prophets but through the elements themselves. The pamphlet’s eyewitness testimonies serve this purpose: they establish that the event really happened, that it was terrifying, and that God’s mercy was demonstrated in the preservation of those who might have been killed.

The witnesses are named and localised — Mr Robert Wilkinson of the Custom-house, Richard Lane’s housekeeper at the Bowling Green, Mrs Eleanor Clapham at the Angel, Mrs Faith Carfoot crossing the churchyard. This gives the account a vivid, almost novelistic quality. The author is less interested in what the fireball was than in what it meant, and the pamphlet ends not with conclusions but with an exhortation to “amend our Lives” and a closing poem on the terror of divine fire.

What Halley Does

Halley’s paper approaches the same event from an entirely different direction. For him, the fireball is not a message but a physical object moving through measurable space, and his goal is to determine its trajectory, altitude and velocity using geometry and the triangulated observations of multiple witnesses across the country. He collects sightings from a wide geographical spread — not to establish terror but to calculate angles of elevation — and uses these to demonstrate the “uncommon height” at which the object was travelling: approximately 60 miles above the Earth’s surface, far higher than any weather phenomenon.

This was itself a significant scientific contribution. At the time, meteors were widely understood as atmospheric phenomena — burning gases or exhalations from the Earth, in the Aristotelian tradition — rather than objects arriving from beyond the atmosphere. Halley’s calculation of the fireball’s altitude, and the logical implication that it must therefore be moving through a region above the weather, was a step towards the modern understanding of meteors as extraterrestrial objects. It would take another century before this understanding became widely accepted, but Halley’s paper was part of the evidence building towards it.

Halley also notes the hissing sounds reported by some witnesses but argues these were likely auditory illusions — the mind filling in what the eyes were seeing — since the object would have been too far away for any sound to reach observers so quickly. This careful scepticism about witness testimony, distinguishing reliable visual observation from potentially unreliable sensory experience, is thoroughly modern in character.

Two Cultures, One Fireball

The pamphlet and the paper were almost certainly written within days of each other, describing the same two minutes of fire in the same sky. Yet they inhabit entirely different intellectual worlds. For the pamphlet’s author, the cosmos is a theatre of divine intention: every unusual event is a communication. For Halley, it is a system of physical laws, and the job of the scientist is to measure it.

What is remarkable is that in 1719, both views were held simultaneously and without obvious contradiction by educated people. The pamphlet’s author is not a fool: he is collecting careful testimony and acknowledging the limitations of individual perception. Halley himself was a man of his age in other ways, and the boundary between natural philosophy and providential thinking was far more porous in the early eighteenth century than it would become by the nineteenth.

This pamphlet, then, is a document balanced on a cusp: between the old world in which fire in the sky was God’s anger, and the new world in which it was a rock from space. Boston, Lincolnshire — a small market town, a two-penny pamphlet, a frightened woman in a churchyard — turns out to have had a front-row seat at one of history’s great intellectual transitions.

A Note on the Transcription

The text of the pamphlet that follows is transcribed from the original pages reproduced at the start of this volume. Spelling and punctuation have been retained as in the original where they do not impede understanding, but the long ‘s’ (the letterform ‘ſ’, which resembles an ‘f’ without a full crossbar) has been silently replaced throughout with a modern ‘s’. This letterform was standard in printed English until the late eighteenth century and was not pronounced any differently from a regular ‘s’: it is a typographic convention only, and retaining it serves no purpose for the modern reader beyond making the text harder to read.

The pamphlet was printed with italic and roman type used to distinguish emphasis, proper nouns and key theological terms. Where this distinction is clear and meaningful, it has been preserved. Page numbers from the original are noted in square brackets.

Click the image above to open the full page view and use the arrows to scroll through the pages.

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A Strange and Wonderful

ACCOUNT

Of the Appearance of

A Fiery Meteor

IN THE

AIR:

Which was seen by many Hundreds of Spectators, at the Town of Boston in Lincolnshire, on Thursday the Nineteenth of March 1718-19.

With a full and perfect Relation of its Rise and Progress through the Heavens, asserted by the Testimony of many Witnesses; with an Account of God's great Mercy in the miraculous Preservation of several People, of which you have a true and perfect Relation.

Stamford, Lincolnshire:

Printed for, and sold by Henry Wilson in Boston; sold also by the Printers in Stamford, and at their Printing-Office at Bury St. Edmund's in Suffolk. 1719.   Price Two Pence.

A Strange and most Wonderful

ACCOUNT

Of the Appearance of a

Fiery METEOR.

[p. 3]  If there is any Thing to be gather'd from Outward Appearances, the Uncommon Actions Nature works upon her self with her own Hands, must be Tokens of God's Anger against us; Nature is never so much out of her Wits, as in the Frenzy to lay violent Hands upon her self, if the Author of Nature does not lay his irresistable Commands to do so for a Terror, and for the Punishment of wicked Men.

[p. 4]  Certain it is, that in Earthquakes, Eruptions of Fire, of Water from below us, the violent Tempests, Hurricanes, and Tournadoes, with all the dreadful Appearances of blazing Meteors, and fearful Lightnings from above, are to be receiv'd with a due Sense of the great Goodness of God towards us, Who in the midst of Judgment remembereth Mercy; and to use for our Amendment the Occasion of those wonderful Effects, thereby, as it were, to affright us (by the Terror of those Sights) to Repentance and dutiful Respect towards him: Neither is there any one, except he hath no Religion, who is not afraid at those uncommon Phaenomena; for God speaks to Men, not only with the Tongues of Prophets, Apostles, and Teachers, but sometimes also by the Elements, and other Extraordinary Signs in the Heavens, Earth, or Sea: Upon these Considerations, this abridg'd, but faithful Account, I now publish, in Hopes it may be of Warning to, and induce us to a True Repentance and Reformation.

[p. 5]  On Thursday March the 19th, 1718/19, about 8 a Clock at Night, there was observ'd, by some hundreds of the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston in Lincolnshire, a most surprising and uncommon Appearance in the Heavens, which first discover'd it self from the South-West Point of the Horrizon: The Sky seemed to open in a most dreadful Manner, from whose Womb there arose a great, and sudden Lightning; which encreasing more and more to the View of the Spectators, struck them with a great Consternation: It's Continuance not exceeding, at most, Two Minutes and a Half, the Heavens re-instating it self in its usual Course and Tranquility.

[p. 6]  By some it was describ'd like a Sheet of Fire, which cast so great a Light, that the whole Town was illuminated as at Noon-day: The Progression being not so swift as when it arrived to the Zenith, or Mid-Heaven, from whence it broke into the South with great Rapidity, it's Parts being separated with great Violence, bursting forth so great a Fire around, (and for a Moment over-powering the Sight) not unlike that of Gunpowder; some People discerning a Smell of Sulphur, Brimstone, and the like, as generally arises from Meteors, whose Composition are formed of Combustible Matter, in the Element.

We have great Reason to return Thanks to GOD for his Extraordinary Preservation, there being no Account of any great Damage proceeding from it; and shall, for the Truth of this Report, and the Satisfaction of the Curious, give a faithful Relation, from the Testimony of those Persons whose Chance happen'd to be abroad at that Time, and as they related it.

[p. 7]  Mr. Robert Wilkinson, an Officer belonging to His Majesty's Custom-house of this Place, describes the Lightning in Form of a great Sword, which seemed to brandish in the Air, and with great Motion shoot it self into the South, and at its Departure was attended with a great Flame all over the Heavens, and then suddenly vanished.

Richard Lane's House-keeper, who at that Time was at the Bowling-green belonging to Boston, saw it with great Astonishment, which he compared to a Great Ball of Light, with a fiery Tail, which it drew after it with great Swiftness, which he thought suddenly fell to the Ground, and then disappeared. He believed it to last about three Minutes.

[p. 8]  One Salmon, a Miller, belonging to the Water-Works that supply this Town, being on his Journey homeward from Spilsby, differs very little from the same Account, unless from the Computation of Time, which he thought to continue for four Minutes.

Mrs. Eleanor Clapham at the Angel in the Market-place, was so afrighted with the Appearance, she then coming along Goat-street, had much ado to recover Home, and was taken very Ill, her Friends being under no small Apprehension of a Miscarriage.

Mrs. Faith Carfoot, Daughter of Mr. Joseph Carfoot of this Town, and Master of the Charity School; who at that Time was crossing the Church-Yard in her Way to her Father's, she was suddenly struck down by the Violence of the Lightning, which Accident through God's Mercy, was seen by the Reverend Mr. Kellsal, Vicar of Boston,

[p. 9]  whose seasonable and timely Relief was the chief Means of her Recovery, having order'd her to be taken up and brought into his own House, and appointed those useful Family Means as brought her to her self: Her Surprize was so great, with the Loss of Memory, occasion'd by her Fit, that she can tell of no other but of a great Streaming Light which confus'd her Senses.

The last Account I shall give, bears no less a Truth than the aforegoing Instances, having it from the Gentleman's own Mouth, he being a Person of a fair Character and unspotted Reputation, which I have the more Reason to give Credit to, as there is not any Possibility of Advantage accruing from a false Report.

On Thursday (says he) the 19th Instant, going from Swinstead towards Dunnington, and proposing to lie there that Night, my intented Journey being for Stamford; I had not travelled above a Mile, or a little more, on the Road,

[p. 10]  and at that Time computing it to be near upon Eight a Clock, when I was surpriz'd by a sudden Light, which came spiring and in large Streaks from the West, or rather from the South-West Point of the Heavens; I first believed it to be of the Nature of that Appearance which by us is call'd the Aurora Borealis, and is known in the North of Scotland by the Name of the Pretty Dancers, but was soon convinc'd of my Error, the Sky on a Sudden opening in a most dreadful Manner from whose Abyss issued, or, as it were, belch'd out vast and innumerable Streams of Fire, which joining in one Body, rush'd forward with that Velocity, as the whole Element seem'd in one continued Blaze: My Horse trembled under me, my Apprehensions were rais'd to the greatest Pitch of Amazement,

[p. 11]  and if the Great Author of Nature, in his great Mercy, had not reliev'd me by its sudden Disappearance, I had in all likelihood been overwhelm'd by so direful a Prodigy.

Nature now returning to her self, begins to smile at her own Recovery from so great a Confusion, the Moon displaying her Silver Light, triumphing in her own Sphere, and gladded at a longer Respite to her favourite Mortals; my Soul exulted it self in Thanks and Praise to our Great Creator, and with the Psalmist, cry'd out, Thy Mercy, O Lord, is greater than the Heavens, and thy Truth reacheth unto the Clouds.

There are several more Instances of the great Terror that it gave to the People of this Town, and other Places; but as we have no Instance of any great Harm receiv'd, we have greater Reason

[p. 12]  whence our Protection comes, to praise God for his great and wonderful Preservation, to make use of it as a Fatherly Call to Repentance, and to amend our Lives, which is the only way to deprecate God's Judgments, and to turn his Fiery Wrath from amongst us.

Heav'n seems to flame, and thro' the Welkin, Fire

Obliquely flies; throughout the Hemisphere

Strange formed Meteors the thick Air hath bred,

Like Javelins long, like Lamps more broadly spread:

All gaze with Wonder at the Blazing Sight,

And dread the Streams of its diffusive Light,

Lest the dread Object that their Eyes admire,

To scourge their Sins, shou'd set the World on fire.

 FINIS.