Boston MA

We got up at 7am, left home at 8am, walked to the corner, caught the shuttle bus to Indy at 8:45am arriving at the airport at 10:30am. The plane departed (on time) at 1pm and landed at 3:05pm. We found the subway, but it was a bus, and took it to the real subway line. We took the real subway from South Station to Harvard only to find we were on the wrong side of the river. Apparently Harvard is on both sides. We found a visitor information booth and got a map and directions and set off walking. Llew had the big back-pack and I had my red wheelie suitcase. No problems walking with either. So down to the river, over the bridge, along the river and to the hotel. We get at 5pm in and get a warm cookie each upon check in and eat it looking at a fantastic view of the river and Boston.








We didn’t feel like walking anywhere (wonder why) so went to the lounge in the lobby and had beer and food there. It was pretty good. The hotel was all open in the middle and we saw where we wanted to go.


Tuesday morning was lovely and fine and sunny and 48 degrees F. It is really fall here! We found out that the hotel had a free shuttle to downtown so took it at 10am to Boston Common. From there we did the Freedom trail. (Follow the link for more detailed info, I will only cover the basics.)

It started at Boston Common which is 44 acres of park in the middle of the city that was the original pasture for the city from 1630 but the cows were removed in 1830.

At the top of the common is the New Massachusetts State House built for Samuel Adams, the governor, in 1795.

Opposite is the Shaw/54th Regiment Memorial to interracial cooperation during the Civil War in 1861. Many of the city’s blacks wanted to fight to free those in the south but were not allowed until Governor Andrew got the war department to let them but not as officers. Robert Gould Shaw (white) led the regiment into the south but Shaw and 32 men were killed in the assault on Fort Wagner. This monument was the first of its kind and was dedicated in 1897.

Next is the Granary Burying Ground which is next to the old grain warehouse where there is now Park Street Church. Here lies the parents of Benjamin Franklin, Sam Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Mother Goose, Paul Revere, and John Hancock.









Next was King’s Chapel built in 1687 beside a graveyard because the Puritans wouldn’t let them build it anywhere else (since been rebuilt), a statue of Ben Franklin from 1856 with a half serious half funny face, an old school game on the side-walk from Boston’s first public school of which Ben was a drop-out, a memorial to Boston’s Irish famine, and the oldest building from 1712 which is a book store with visitors such as Longfellow, Hawthorne, Emerson, Thackaray and Dickens.

Next stop was the Old South Meeting House the site of the meeting where Adams initiated the Boston tea-party. It was held by the Britsh during the seige of Boston, was a Boston church for ~100 years, and is now a museum. Near there is the birthplace of Ben Franklin.

Round the corner is the Old State House built in 1713 before they moved up to the top of the common. Here was the first public gallery for the legislative assembly in 1766 for debate on the Stamp Act, and also was the site of the Boston Massacre was in 1770 where 5 died from the fire of 8 British soldiers. It was a precursor to the civil war.

Next is Faneuil Hall, 1742, a meeting place where the colonists spoke publicly against British rule and was the rallying place of America’s anti-slavery movement. The meeting hall still has meetings today, including about the Iraq war. There is a statue of Samual Adams outside and is next to Quincy Market.

We passed the Holocaust Memorial, Union Oyster House (oldest continuously operated restaurant in America since 1826), the Green Dragon Tavern in which many revolution meeting were held but has since been relocated (of course we had a beer there), and the Boston Stone brought from England in 1700 and used as tavern advertising since 1737.




We leave the old part of town, past ‘garbidge’ cast in bronze as a permanent reminder of market day to Haymarket which is now above Boston’s ‘big dig’.

Next into North End, Boston’s Italian-American quarter with the home of Paul Revere (small dark wooden house). Here is the Old North Church which is famous for the signal lanterns that Paul Revere got Robert Newman to shine from the steeple to warn the people of Charlestown that the British were coming. He then escaped through the window to the left of the altar. Then Paul Revere made his rowing dash across the Charles River then rode past British watch to Lexington with this same news for Hancock and Adams. Copp’s Hill Burying Ground is up the road.




















Crossing the Charles River (by bridge, not boat) we got to the Charlestown Navy Yard and the USS Constitution, a battle ship built to gruard the merchant fleet from Algerian pirates and British and French navies. Launched on October 21 1797, it was never beaten and with its hull partly made from live oak which is 5 times stronger than normal oak, gave it the nickname of ‘Old Ironside’. It is also the oldest ship still in commission and the tours are given by active sailors.

Up the road following the continous red line of this freedom trail that is sometimes brick, sometimes painted, to Bunker Hill famous for the American resistence against the British attack in 1775 after being warned by Revere. The Americans kept back two waves of attack and would have succeeded in the third but they ran out of amunition even though they had many more people. It was a British victory, but 1054 British died and only 441 Americans died. The monument stands 221 feet and has 294 steps. Llew went to the top, I waited in the sun at the bottom. A fitting, but sombre end to the Freedom Trail.








The last thing we did was the Museum of Afro-American History. We could not take pictures inside, but this is the outside of the 2 original buildings.

Congatulations on getting through this extra-long post but we had an extra-special time. The next post is likely to be longer, or I might split it, from NYC!