07/15/10

Come with me as we walk the Freedom Trail through Boston. We did this tour on July Fourth... so fitting!! The sites are spread ALL OVER Boston... you literally walk the whole city. They have a red line that helps you get from place to place so instead of "follow the yellow brick road" we follow the red line! We followed it both days we were in Boston to help us find historical places.

We started here on our Freedom Trail - the Massachusetts State House. Beautiful building. That is real gold on the dome.

We went through Boston Commons, a park in the middle of the city. It is right in front of the Massachusetts State House. We didn't get to explore all of it as there wasn't enough time with the tour. (That is the bad part about tours.... you can't stop and soak it in because you have to move on to the next thing.) There were interesting tidbits we found out about the origins of Boston itself. I cannot recall them all because I am more visual than auditory, remember? However, there was a man named Blackstone who was a hermit who allowed the Puritans to come and live on the same land area he lived on. Not such a good thing because he was Anglican... and a liberal one at that (lol) and they were not fond of how he carried on so they chose to be nice but not necessarily stay together. The Boston Commons area was some of the land they shared.

Here is one of the churches. I think it is Park Street Church....

Being the Fourth there were all kinds of parades all day! We "ran into" one of them as we were on the tour. I would have loved to have stopped and photographed them better but we were bookin' it to the next stop when we went by these. It was so neat hearing the sounds of Patriotism as we walked along the trail.

The King's Chapel... it has no steeple because they ran out of money. No Patriots are buried in the graveyard there... these would be for Loyalists and English Soldiers only! (Hence... KING'S Chapel...)

Here is the South Meeting House where many meetings about Independence were held. Thousands of people met here during many of the times of planning against the British.

Close up of the main entrance of the South Meeting House.

The Old State House
You will see more pictures of this later. We passed by this right before someone was to come out on the balcony and read the Declaration of Independence just like they did in 1776. I would have loved to have stayed for that but, again, we had to move on. This building is in the middle of huge skyscrapers now but this was the tallest building of its time.

Faneuil Hall
This was a marketplace area and a place where meetings for Independence were held. Samuel Adams' statue is in front.

This house on the left was originally owned by John Hancock and he allowed his brother to live there. At one time it held the oldest running shoe business on the bottom floor. That closed in the 1960's but it began in the 1800's if I remember correctly. Now this building houses lawyers which is fitting for a house owned once by John Hancock.

More of the Freedom Trail tomorrow. Hope everyone is enjoying the "tours" of where we went!