America’s oldest public park, the Boston Common, began as a common grazing ground for sheep and cattle. Eccentric Anglican William Blackstone settled on Beacon Hill with only his books for company in 1622. In 1630, Puritans from Charlestown joined him to share the area’s potable springs, but by 1635 Blackstone bristled at the increased populations and moved to roomy Rhode Island to satisfy his reclusive nature. He returned to Boston on a white bull some years later to propose to his beloved.
Situated on 44 acres of open land, it was used as a common pasture for grazing cattle owned by the townspeople of Boston. The Common later became a "trayning" field for the militia and was used as a British Army camp during the occupation of Boston. The Common’s varied uses also included a place to hang pirates and witches or publicly pillory criminals in “stocks.” It has also served a higher purpose as a place for public oratory and discourse. Reverend Martin Luther King spoke here, Pope John Paul II said Mass here, and Gloria Steinem advanced the feminist revolution on these grounds. These days, visitors to the Common can enjoy a concert, a performance of Shakespeare or the simple, calm respite from the bustle of city life.
In the common is the Tadpole Playground which is a big area for kids that looks really fun! (I've no idea where the rest of my pictures from here went... I'll keep looking for them)
Benjamin Franklin Statue/Boston Latin School
America’s first public school offered instruction to boys, rich or poor free of charge here while girls attended private schools in peoples’ homes. The boys-only tradition finally ended in 1972 when girls were permitted to attend Boston Latin. It is fabled that on April 19, 1775 word of shots fired in Lexington circulated rapidly throughout Boston Town. Boston Latin’s instructor John Lovel was inspired to rise and rhyme “Close your books. Schools done, and war’s begun!”
A striking mosaic marks the spot where the school once stood, and where one if its most famous students Benjamin Franklin attended classes not long before he dropped out of school forever. Boston Latin School is still in operation in the Fenway neighborhood of Boston.
We stopped for a group photo near Ben
Site of the Boston Massacre
On this site, a skirmish between and angry group of colonists and a few terrified British soldiers erupted into the first deadly encounter between Boston colonists and British “red coats.”
The trouble began when a crowd of angry colonists left a local tavern and approached a British sentry standing guard outside the on a chilly March 5th, 1770. They were “a motley rabble of saucy boys,” according to John Adams who had assembled around an argument between a young boy and a soldier. Eyewitness accounts of the event are confusing. The boy was struck with the barrel of a musket by a sentry, and the crowd became a mob. They threw sticks, ice snowballs and rocks at the young British guards, and finally a wooden club that knocked one of the sentries to the ground.
It might have been their jeering taunt “fire, fire, why don’t you fire? You dare not fire?” that caused the confusion, or the panic of the young British soldiers who were outnumbered and under attack, but fire they did and within seconds 11 were wounded or dying.
Samuel Adams and Paul Revere seized upon the tragedy to spark a flame of anger among the colonists by representing the skirmish as a massacre. The British soldiers were tried for murder. John Adams, a Boston lawyer and ardent patriot defended them in spite of his contemporaries’ assertion that the event was a “horrible and bloody massacre.” He was as loyal to the ideal of justice as he was to the patriot cause.
I don't have any pictures from here, but I did see it. There is a tiny plaque in the area where this took place.
The Old North Church
Immortalized in Longfellow’s poem Paul Revere’s Ride, the Old North is the oldest church building in Boston and the city’s most visited historic site. On the evening of April 18, 1775, the Old North sexton, Robert Newman, climbed the steeple and held high two lanterns as a signal from Paul Revere that the British were marching to Lexington and Concord to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock and to seize the Colonial store of ammunition. This fateful event ignited the American Revolution.
If I recall correctly this was in the North End, I remember seeing it but it was dark when we were in the North End so I don't have a picture. It just means I need to come back because you can take tours in many of these buildings!
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