Constitution, with sails, Boston
USS Constitution, with sails up, during the commemoration of the battle with Guerriere, August, 1812. Constitution will go into drydock this winter, for two years of restoration work.
Battle of Bunker Hill
June 16, 1775. The Battle of Bunker Hill. British troops attacked the fortified hill top, with disastrous results. The colonial militia was finally pushed back, but the British suffered 800 injured and 226 killed. This painting, by John Trumbull, is in the Yale Art Museum.
on Memorial day, consider the 54th Regiment of African-American soldiers, led by Col. Robert G. Shaw. They went south on May 28, 1863, to fight in South Carolina. Their first attack, at Fort Wagner, was a disaster. Monumental bas-relief by Augustus St. Gaudens, on Beacon St.
Tonight – April 18 – anniversary of Paul Revere’s famous “Midnight Ride” to Lexington, MA. This statue, near Old North Church, by Cyrus Dallin.
Translating “Boston Freedom Trail” into Chinese, with format for cell phone. Next languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic. Eminently readable.
USS Constitution guns, snow, Charlestown, MA © Steve Dunwell
Deck cannons of “USS Constitution”, with snow. “Old Ironsides” carried several types of cannons. The 24-pound long guns had a range of 1200 yards.
240 years ago. December 16, 1773 – A great crowd gathered at the Old South Meeting House to hear speeches protesting new taxes on imports, including tea. Shouting “Boston harbor a tea party tonight,” they went down to the nearby docks. Thinly disguised as “Mohawks”, fifty men boarded three East India ships – Dartmouth, Beaver and Eleanor. Breaking open 342 chests of imported tea, they dumped the lot into the harbor. The “Intolerable Acts” soon followed as punishment.
King’s Chapel, the center for Anglican worship, was completed in 1754. Designed by Peter Harrison with four-foot-thick walls of Quincy granite, it was the first stone church in the Province. Sometimes written as “Kings Chapel.”
Old South Church interior, © Steve Dunwell
In 1729 master builder Joshua Blanchard completed the new brick structure of Old South, replacing a simple two-story cedar structure on the site and creating the largest space for public meetings of any Boston building. Here the Tea Party was begun.
Donated by Peter Faneuil in 1742, rebuilt after a fire in 1761, then enlarged in 1805, Faneuil Hall served as market and meeting place – the “Acropolis of Boston,” a marketplace of ideas and resistance. Later known as the “Cradle of Liberty.”