A Guide to Boston's Freedom Trail by Bruce Holmes
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If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,
One if by land, and two if by sea ….
The words of Longfellow’s poem describe Paul Revere’s instructions for the night of April 18, 1775. When Robert Newman hung two lanterns from Boston’s Old North Church steeple, indicating the route the British Redcoats were taking, Revere began the midnight ride that came to symbolise the start of the American War of Independence.
Visitors see that beautiful white church steeple as they follow a 4km red-brick line through the centre of Boston, tracing the footsteps of Samuel Adams, Paul Revere and others along the "Freedom Trail".
Beginning at Boston Common, from where the British troops left on that mission, I passed the gold-domed Massachusetts State House before reaching the Granary Burial Ground established in 1660.
There lie buried revolutionary figures like Paul Revere, three signatories to The Declaration of Independence, Samuel Adams, John Hancock and Robert Treat Paine, Benjamin Franklin’s parents and five victims of the Boston Massacre.
Back on the path I followed the line of red bricks to King’s Chapel. Completed in 1754 as the first Anglican church, on orders from King James II, it displeased the Puritan settlers. Boston’s first burial ground is here too, the last resting place of thousands of 17th and 18th century settlers, notably Mary Chilton, the first woman to step off the Mayflower in 1620, and William Dawes who rode with Paul Revere.
I was intrigued by the motifs used on 17th-century grave-markers, including the “death’s head,” a skull with wings symbolizing physical death but spiritual regeneration. The Puritans didn’t use angels and crosses on gravestones.
Turning down School Street I reached the sidewalk mosaic commemorating the first public school in America, established in 1635.
The Old South Meeting House was next, where on December 16, 1773 Samuel Adams addressed 5,000 protesting colonists with a rousing speech about the arrival of heavily-taxed tea. When night fell, Adams, Revere and others dressed as Mohawk Indians boarded three English ships and dumped 342 chests of tea into the harbour in that famous “Boston Tea Party.”
At the Old State House, former headquarters of British government, I saw statues of the lion and unicorn symbolizing the King’s power. It was in front of this building in 1770 that a lone British sentry was taunted by an angry crowd. Reinforcements arrived but were also abused and when a club was thrown, muskets fired in the chaos and five colonists were killed.
Though technically not a “massacre,” propagandist Samuel Adams described it as such and Paul Revere created an engraving of the incident. A circle of stones in the pavement commemorates the tragic day.
From the Old State House balcony in 1776 Colonel Thomas Crafts read the Declaration of Independence. Celebrations ensued, during which the royal lion and unicorn were burned. It would 100 years before those symbols were restored to the façade. In the ultimate irony Queen Elizabeth II addressed Bostonians from that same balcony 200 years later.
Faneuil Hall was my next stop. Built in 1742 by wealthy merchant Peter Faneuil as a gift to the city, it became a marketplace and meeting hall and another site where patriots addressed protesting crowds, becoming known as "The Cradle of Liberty."
Its 1976 renovation was the first urban renewal project of its kind and it now houses markets set around a cobblestone promenade where buskers entertain the crowds. On the meeting hall’s dome a grasshopper weather-vane made of copper and gold leaf and with glass doorknobs for eyes swings in the breeze, the sole remaining detail from the original building.
The Freedom Trail went next to North Square, where the child in me recalled the words of Longfellow’s poem:
Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere
For here stands the oldest building in downtown Boston, Paul Revere House built around 1680 and purchased by Revere for his growing family in 1770. Luckily a descendent restored it and today it functions as a museum. Nearby in a tree-lined area below that Old North Church steeple stands a bronze statue of Paul Revere on horseback. Unveiled in 1940, it captures the feeling of the famous ride.
Next along the red-brick line was Copp’s Hill Burying Ground in the North End, where lie Robert Newman, who placed the lanterns in the steeple, and Edmund Hart who built the USS Constitution.
That vessel at the Charlestown Navy Yard was the penultimate stop along the trail. Launched in 1797, it’s the oldest commissioned warship in the world and can be inspected on guided tours run by naval personnel dressed in 1812 uniforms, for it was in the War of 1812 against the British that the ship was unbeaten in forty sea battles.
My last history stop was the site of the first major battle of the War of Independence referred to as the Battle of Bunker Hill, though the American colonists’ forces under Colonel William Prescott actually dug in on top of Breed's Hill closer to the water. The British suffered heavy casualties when repulsed by the colonials but on their third charge the Americans ran out of ammunition and had to retreat.
In 1843 a 221-foot (67m) high granite obelisk was dedicated to their memory. Visitors can view the city from the top of the monument, but there are 294 steps and no elevator.
Having reached the end of the red-brick line that is Boston’s Freedom Trail and gained some understanding of this critical period in history, it wasn’t hard to imagine hearing Colonel Prescott shout those famous words:
"Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes!"