Our adventure took us on the old town trolley along the freedom trail. The first stop was The Old North Church in Boston. This is the church steeple that Paul Revere had a person hang lanterns in the steeple, one lantern meant the Redcoats were coming by land and two lanterns by sea.
After seeing the lanterns , Paul Revere crossed the river to Charlestown the night of April 18, 1775, and then borrowed a horse to report to John Adams and John Hancock that the British were coming and with great force. This is the story of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.
Contrary to what history has taught us Paul Revere never said “The British are Coming”. He also never finished his midnight ride, the British detained him before he ever got to Concord. Samuel Prescott was the only one of three riders that made the journey to Concord to warn that the British were coming. Paul Revere’s ride became famous from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem.
We next walked a few blocks over from the church to Paul Revere’s home.
Paul Revere had 16 children in 30 years. They said he always had 5 or 6 children at home at one time. Paul became quite the businessman in Boston. He was a silversmith. He used the profits from his expanding business to finance his work in iron casting, bronze bell and cannon casting, and the forging of copper bolts and spikes. In 1800, he became the first American to successfully roll copper into sheets for use as sheathing on naval vessels. He was a Massachusetts militia officer. He was a member of the Sons of Liberty. Paul Revere left his mark all over the city of Boston which can still be seen today.
We then passed by the skinniest house in Boston. A plaque outside the house reads, “The Skinny House Est. 1862.” In addition to its odd dimensions, the home also has a spiteful history of sibling rivalry, which contributes to its local lore and tourist appeal.
Two brothers are said to have inherited the property from their deceased father during the Civil War, and one built himself a massive home, while the other was away fighting. When the latter returned home, he found only a shred of property remaining. The soldier decided to build the narrow house out of spite, blocking his brother’s sunlight.
We kept moving down the freedom trail until we came upon the U.S.S. Constitution, also known as Old Ironsides, is a wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy frigate of the United States Navy. She is the world’s oldest ship of any type still afloat. It was launched in 1797.
We then saw the monument for the battle of Bunker Hill. It looks like the Washington monument with the Bunker Hill monument being older. It’s a rare monument in America where the Americans lost the battle. It was an early battle in the American Revolution with bloodshed. This became pivotal to the war.
We then jumped on the trolley to see where the Boston Tea Party took place. The Boston Tea Party was a political protest that occurred on December 16, 1773, at Griffin’s Wharf in Boston, Massachusetts. American colonists, frustrated and angry at Britain for imposing “taxation without representation,” dumped 342 chests of tea, imported by the British East India Company into the harbor. It took 3 hours to dump the tea. The event was the first major act of defiance to British rule over the colonists. It showed Great Britain that Americans wouldn’t take taxation and tyranny sitting down, and rallied American patriots across the 13 colonies to fight for independence.
The Granary Burying Ground in Massachusetts the city of Boston’s third-oldest cemetery, was founded in 1660. It is the final resting place for many notable Revolutionary War Patriots including Paul Revere, the five victims of the Boston Massacre, and three signers of the Declaration of Independence; Samual Adams, John Hancock, and Robert Trent Payne.
Today was a busy day, but I felt like I saw a lot of cool history. Boston has a lot of history for one city. Massachusetts was very important to the development of our country without English Rule.
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