241 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.
Tag Archives: Common
Old State House photo Freedom Trail
Boston’s oldest public building, erected in 1713 overlooking Long Wharf, replaced an old wooden Town House dating from 1658. After the Great fire of 1711, the town financed a brick building with a room for the Elder’s meeting, a library, an arsenal, and an arcaded farmers’ market “for the country people that come with theire provisions…to sitt dry and warme both in colde raine and durty weather.” It became the hub of the colony’s trade.
Preserved and operated by The Bostonian Society.
new State House by Bulfinch – painting
Designed by Charles Bulfinch. Cornerstone laid on July 4, 1795, with Paul Revere and Gov. Sam Adams presiding. This view is from a banjo clock, ca. 1870. Painted on glass, it shows the view from the Boston Common. The original dome was copper, from Revere’s workshop.
USS Constitution Freedom Trail photo
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, Charlestown, MA
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.
Bunker Hill monument aerial photo
Copps Hill Burying Ground photo
Tombstone of William Hough, 1714. Copp’s Hill, the Town’s second burying ground, was established in 1659 on a hill named for shoemaker William Copp. The site soon rivaled the Common as a public venue, hosting such spectacles as the 1704 execution of seven pirates. Cannons mounted near here shelled Charlestown during the Battle of Bunker Hill, 1775.