It was early in the morning when people began noticing the displays, and throughout the day, the crowd of spectators grew. By the afternoon, there was a full-scale rally going. Visible in the crowd were Boston leaders Sam Adams and James Otis, but they did not take credit for the displays, though they certainly made no effort to calm the rising anger and tension in the crowd, which was now feeding on itself as the day wore on.
Massachusetts Governor Francis Bernard, concerned about the increasing size of the crowd and its temperament, urged the Council to take action. Most of them demurred, arguing that it was a prank, and that it was wise not to help turn it into something worse by provoking the crowd. Bernard's lieutenant governor disagreed.
Thomas Hutchinson, who also served as Massachusetts chief justice, believed, along with Bernard, that the demonstration was a potential threat to civil order and royal authority, and that the risks grew with each hour the government sat idly. He dispatched the city sheriff to cut down the effigy and disperse the crowd.
When the sheriff approached the rally, he realized that following his orders would not be an advisable, not to mention safe, course of action. He and his men quickly retreated, and reported back to the chief justice the seriousness of the situation.
In the evening, the crowd did what Greenleaf had set out to do. They took down Oliver's effigy. They nailed it to a board, which was hoisted up on the shoulders of several burly Bostonians and carried through the streets of the city in a procession, made up of hundreds of chanting citizens. Bernard was visibly concerned when the crowd passed by his office. But fortunately, they passed by. His lieutentant governor wouldn't be so lucky.
The crowd's first target was obviously Andrew Oliver. When they reached a new brick building Oliver had constructed on the waterfront, they attacked it with merciless ferocity. It was soon destroyed, but the mob's thirst was not yet quenched. Shortly thereafter, they marched their way up Fort Hill to Oliver's home. Their voices carried throughout most of Boston, and their torches lit up the evening sky.
Alerted by the sheriff, Oliver and his family barely escaped from their home, before the mob beheaded the effigy and set it to flames in a large bonfire in front of his house. As the flames consumed Oliver's image, the crowd stormed his residence. His garden was ruined, and his home ransacked.
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