A day in Boston

For a few weeks now I have wanted to spend some time just walking around Boston.  Since getting my new camera, I have wanted to do this even more.  I love the history we have so close to home.  Boston is only 11 miles away and I can walk about 100 feet from my front door to get a bus to take me to a train station.  I can be in downtown Boston in about 20 - 30 minutes.

So what has been holding me back.  Trying to get my daughter to go with me.  She loves history as much as I do but she always has other plans on the days I ask her about going in.  I gave up this weekend and said I was going in by myself.  She finally gave in and went with me.

This isn't the train we took into town, it is the Acela train.  I took a photo because I would love to take this train from Boston to Washington DC for a day.  It is listed as being very spacious and fast.  Speeds up to 150 miles per hour.  There is a schedule that leaves Boston as night and arrived at 7 am.  Spend the whole day seeing as many sites as possible then board the train at 10 pm that night and arrive back in Boston as around 7 the next morning.  A day of sites without paying for a hotel.

Anyway,  This was our first stop.  We got off at South Station.








 From here we started walking toward the Boston Tea Party museum.

This is a strange photo.  As we walked we saw a guy in full Star Wars custom on a bike with a plastic gun attached to the back of his bike.  When I tried to get a photo he walked behind these shrubs and column.

 

 The Boston Tea Party Museum

 I have never been inside so thought we might do this today.  You get a little show of the famous dumping of the Tea event, then you can board a replica ship and throw a box of tea overboard yourself.

Well, for $25 per person, we decided to just peek at the gift shop and take photos from the street.

From here we continued walking along the waterfront, past the giant Hood Milk Jug and the Children's Museum with Arthur sitting up on top.

 

 Then continued

Just taking photos of the views we saw along the way.  It was a beautiful day for sightseeing.

The Custom House.  This has always fascinated me.  You may not know, when this was built, it was actually right on the Boston waterfront.  The ships could dock right at this building.  It was commissioned by President Andrew Jackson in 1835.  Construction was completed and the building got dedicated in 1847 while Polk was President.  It was built to hold the offices that inspected and registered cargo from the ships entering and leaving Boston harbor.  There was a contest held to decide on the design of the building.  A winning design was by Ammi Young.  He had 36 columms around the building.  The columns were all cut from one piece of granite from Quincy, MA. (where I live) 

 

The tower that we see today was not part of the original design.  It was added in 1913 and made the Custom House the tallest building in Boston at the time, standing at 495 feet.  Even the Hancock building is not this tall.  It is 1 foot shorter.  The clock you see did not work for most of the 20th century.  The motor installed was too small to handle it.  In 1915 the land recovery act in Boston took place extended the land area further out into the harbor.  This is why the tower sits further into the city now.  They did not move the tower.  They added dirt to the ocean pushing back the harbor so more property could be built.  Everything was built on pilings to make sure they were secure. In 1986 the maritime offices were moved out of the Custom House and the building remained empty until the Marriott corporation bought the building to convert it into timeshare suites.  There was very little usable space inside the building so to make these suites they had to come up with 22 different floor plans.  Today there are 87 one bedroom suites that you can stay in if you have time share property. (you can trade your time share for a week here)

 

OK, now to continue are walk...

 

My daughter and I were getting hungry so we headed to Quincy Market for something to hold us over.  While there we decided to go into Faneuil Hall.  Another old historic spot. 

 

Faneuil Hall

 

It was given to the city of Boston as a gift by Peter Faneuil.  The purpose was a market and meeting house.  It was built in 1742.  The first floor was all open for market stalls and the upper floor was used for town meetings.  In 1761 a fire destroyed everything except the brick structure itself.  The town paid to have the building restored the following year.  Many famous meetings were held in the meeting hall.

 

As things were heating up between the British and the colonist, the weathervane that sits on the top of this building became a symbol that could affect your life.  If you were captured, you were asked what sits atop Faneuil Hall?  If you knew it was a grasshopper you were freed, and if you did not know then you were convicted of being a British spy.

 

In 1805 Charles Bulfinch, a name you hear quite often in Boston Architecture, greatly expanded Faneuil Hall.  He doubled the size and height of the building, added a third floor and closed in the open market area on the first floor.  He also had the cupola with the grasshopper weathervane moved from one end of the building to the other. I am not sure of the reason why.

 

Webster's Reply to Hayne is the giant mural hanging in the great hall.  Daniel Webster as well as Andrew Jackson held debates in this hall.

Here my daughter is signing a declaration much like they did back in the 1700's, quill pen and all.

 A photo of the back balcony of the hall.

The only known full-size portrait of Abraham Lincoln.

 

On to some more sights...



 

  Some of the oldest streets in Boston.  In the 1600's William Blackstone was a preacher that settled in what is now known as Boston.  To walk down these streets feels like you are walking back in time.  The Union Oyster house is the oldest operating restaurant in the country.  The building has existed since the 1600's .  It was first a clothing shop.  The location was so close to the waterfront to make it very convenient in getting fabrics from the ships to the shop.  More recently in history, the late 1950's early 60's John F Kennedy would often eat here on the 2nd floor.  He had a favorite booth which was later dedicated to him. 

 

 

On to the Northend of Boston.  I actually lived here for a very short time of three months.  I loved it here.  Every evening you could look out your window to see the older neighbors sitting in their aluminum chairs out in front of their stoops talking to each other.  I would put my infant son in his stroller and we would walk for at least an hour every night.  It was a great place to live, but not easy to drive around or park a car in.  I had to pay a monthly fee for a parking spot.  If I was not working outside of the city I would not have needed a car. 

 

Anyway, Mike's Pastry is a famous bakery that for whatever reason I never found the time to go into.  So yesterday my daughter and I headed there.  The line was going down the street. So, once again I did not get to get anything but I snuck inside just to see what the inside looked like.

 

Not much further down and off a side street is Paul Revere's house.  Another place I have seen but never been inside.  Yesterday we did get to go inside.  It was only $4.50 for the two of us. 

 

Did you know Paul Revere had 16 children?  His first wife died shortly after having her 8th child.  Paul remarried and had 8 more children with his 2nd wife.  Yikes!  Paul Revere is famous for warning the colonist "The British were Coming"  He was also a goldsmith, silversmith, made fittings for ships and forged bells.  He never missed a church service, and was the founder of the first coppermill in the country.

 

On the way to Old North Church we came upon something really cool.

 

 There is a memorial set up for soldiers that served in Iraq and Afghanistan.  There are hundred of dog tags.  Some with names on them, most are still blank.  But it was beautiful.

 

I have no interesting facts or history about this.  I didn't even know it existed until we walked by it.  Definitely worth taking photos of.

 

 

 

 

Old North Church.  The famous location of the lanterns being held. One if by Land, Two if by Sea.  Paul saw the lantern's glow and took off on horseback to warn as many people as possible.  The gentleman to the right was a tour guide.  I love that these guides not only dress the part but talk the part as well.  He spoke as if today was 1776.  We didn't take his tour but I would hear a glimpse of his stories as we passed him.

I just realized I never took any photos inside the Cobb's Hill burying grounds.  We walked around here for quite a while.  Most graves were of Sea Captains or their family members.  So many woman passed away in their twenties.  We did not see any graves with the year of their births.  They did list when they died and how old they were, though.  My photo was me trying to be artistic and taking a photo of the iron gates around the cemetery.

And this symbol was in the ground at the entrance.  The USS Constitution should have been our next stop but I was getting tired of walking so we turned and headed back into the city.

Oh, I nearly forget about this printing company.  The Printing Office of Edes and Gill.  The only colonial era printing experience in Boston.  A gentleman by the name of Gary Gregory spent 6 years finding the all the various parts to assemble a wooden printing press, such as was used back during the revolutionary war.  Once he gathered everything, then he had to teach himself how to use it.  It is truly an old style press.  Each letter has to be set into the block by hand.  A newspaper size print could take 9 - 12 hours to set.  Then the letters get carefully inks so they print evenly. The paper lays on top and a press pushes the paper down onto the letters.  It was really interesting to see the effort that goes into each printing.  Then to make print after print after print...each print has to be carefully re-inked again, paper laid down, pressed twice in the machine, then lay flat to let the ink dry. 

This is a man with a true passion for history to do this all day long.  It was a bonus we found this little shop.

 

From here we found an Italian festival.  I think there is a Saint's festival each weekend in August.  So we got to play a few carnival games and share some fried dough before moving on.

 

Next stop was Cheers in Quincy Market.  It was more just a break from walking while we decided where to head next.  We could here there was a Gospel concert going on at City Hall Plaza, it was a little too crowded for my taste so we kept moving.

 

Then it started to rain.  I tried to catch it on film in this photo of the Old State house, but it doesn't really show.

 The site of the Boston Massacre.  Another bit of history that fascinated me.  It was a cold evening in March, 1770 when a British soldier is serving sentry duty.  A young boys runs from him bruised and crying.  A crowd of civilian address the soldier about it.  He calls out for assistance.  A Captain and 7 other soldiers joins him.  A bell is ringing to warn of a fire.  More people show up confused as to what is happening.  There is no fire.  They start arguing with the troops.  Telling them to get off the streets and go home to England.  A man by the name of Crispus Attucks was there and he was angry with the soldiers.  Snowballs were being thrown at the soldiers then the snowballs changed into pebbles and pebbles turned into rocks, then Crispus bumped into the soldiers and knock one of them down.  The shout of "fire" was heard and the soldiers set off a rally of gunfire into the crowd.   When the dust cleared there were 3 civilian dead and more wounded.  2 others later die from their wounds.  It was found that the civilians were not even armed.  The British government wanted the soldiers to be pardons, the Civilians wanted the soldiers to pay with their lives.  So a trial was scheduled with John Adams serving as defending attorney for the soldiers.  This was not an easy time for John Adams or his family.  People gave them a gard time about defending the British.  He came back with his duty as a lawyer and these men deserved a fair trial.  Which they did get thanks to him.  7 of the soliders were aqquited while 2 were charged with manslaughter.

 

The old State House.  The Declaration of Independence was read for the first time from this balcony on July 18, 1776 by Colonial Thomas Craft, he was a member of the Sons of Liberty.  Abigail Adams was in the crowd listening.  She later wrote to her husband, John Adams about the event.  She describes it as there being a great hush over the crowd as each line was read, upon completion three cheers arose from the people.

 

Old South Meeting House

This was a gathering place for many discussion about how to deal with the British in Boston.  One such meeting included the one on December 16, 1773 to discuss what the colonist should do about the whole "tea" issue.  The meeting was coming to a stand still when the  signal was given and a group of men from the Sons Of Liberty (175 in total, including Col Thomas Craft and Paul Revere) dressed like Indians and dumped 342 cases of tea off the ship in the Griffins harbor.  In 1775 the colonists were leaving Boston and the British had taken over the city.  While there, they were destroying any sites that they felt were strong supporter of the Son's Of Liberty.  The Old South Meeting house was one.  The soldiers tore out the pulpit and all the pews and burned them all as fuel.  Then they brought in tons of dirt and used the building to train in horse maneuvers.  Once the British were kicked out of Boston it took 8 years to raise the funds to restore the meeting house to the way it was.


As far as my daughter and my walking tour, this was the last place we stopped at.  By the time we got to The Old South Meeting House it was closed for the day.  So I snapped this photo, them we got back on the train and headed home.  We will have to see the rest another day, or I may just go into town all by myself.


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