1998 Trip to the United States
Boston
When we set off on our nine week journey of the eastern United States we thought we were visiting the New World but my, what a lot of history we discovered.
Starting in Boston we went on the Freedom Trail. It was a glorious sunny morning and we walked to Faneuil Hall and up to the Old State House where we called in at the Ranger Information Centre to discover that we were just in time to join an escorted tour of part of The Freedom Trail which runs past many of the points of historical interest in the city. The young lady ranger asked us all where we were from and in this particular party of about ten we were the only Brits. This brought forth the comment that perhaps we were examining the colonies.
The first thing she told us was that the whole of the historic part of Boston is a National Park administered by the Parks Service. She wore the Rangers uniform, complete with what to us looked like one of our old-time boy scout hats.
The Freedom Trail runs from Boston Common through town and over the bridge to Charlestown, passing many of the points of interest involved in particular with the struggle to get Independence from Britain. On this morning she was to show us the middle part of it. The route is clearly marked on the pavements and roads with either a red painted line, or more recently with an inlay of red bricks, which I assume will eventually cover the entire route.
We started off our tour at King's Chapel Old Burial ground, where we saw many graves of the old settlers. The ones made of slate had weathered the years beautifully. We went down School Street, passing a statue to Ben Franklin who was born and lived here before escaping from his apprenticeship and high-tailing it to Philadelphia and his future life. A splendid, intricate memorial to the first school of Boston is inlaid into the pavement here.
The next building of interest was the Old South Meeting House where "much fat was chewed" re those dreadful Brits. It was here, in 1773, that Samuel Adams advocated the dumping of tea in Boston Harbour rather than pay the taxes demanded on it by the British. A little further on the very attractive Old State House, built in 1712, is now dwarfed by the surrounding buildings. On one end of it are the British Lion and Unicorn and on the other the later American Eagle. On July 18th 1776 the Declaration of Independence was read aloud from it's balcony; exactly two hundred years later Queen Elizabeth II appeared on the same balcony.
It was outside this building that the notorious Boston Massacre took place. As she described it to us our Ranger friend told us it was more of a publicity coup than anything else. There had been much trouble and "the natives were restless". It all happened in the heat of the moment in quelling an undoubted riot, which the locals made much capital of. The crowd had been pelting the much smaller number of British soldiers with stone filled snowballs. Five Bostonians were, however, killed.
Next it
was on to Faneuil Hall 
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This building is known as the Cradle of
Liberty. Peter Faneuil was a successful merchant and had amassed a
huge fortune. He wanted to build a central food market in Boston.
It wasn't until he agreed to include a meeting hall within the
building that he was given permission to build it. The original
building, which burnt down in 1761, as the one rebuilt and still
standing, had the market at ground level and the meeting hall above.
In the mid 1770s the taxation policies of the British were vigorously
debated by the likes of Samuel Adams, James Otis, Dr. Joseph Warren
and Paul Revere. Although they were only concerned with the taxation
as it applied to Boston reports of these meeting were carried all
around the colonies. The Hall is still used today for some public
meetings and debates. The top of the building has a unique
gold painted grasshopper weather vane.
Next it was the adjacent Quincy Market. This is now a most attractive, cobble-stoned area with lively shops, stalls and restaurants and take-aways. Street entertainers work there. The whole area has been most attractively re-developed, in a similar fashion, and indeed by the same developer who later went on to transform Covent Garden in London. We moved under, round and through much of the road reconstruction work to reach Paul Revere's House.
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This is Boston's last surviving seventeenth century home. Paul
Revere was a silversmith, Freemason and father of sixteen children,
but above all this he was a tremendous patriot. He embarked upon his
famous "ride" on April 18th, 1775 to Lexington to warn the patriots
there of the British arrival and expected imminent attack. Just in
case he got caught by the British two lanterns were hung from the
nearby Old North Church which could be seen at least as far as
Charlestown, just over the river.
It was here we finished our escorted tour and were free to go for lunch. This we took in an Irish pub on Union Street. The weather was so lovely that we sat on bar stools by an open window and had salads. At the next table two young girls shared a bowl of chowder. Whilst we were sitting there a couple of people passed by in eighteenth century costume, obviously part of Boston's commercial interest in it's history!
In Congress Street, just opposite the ugly City Hall is a very moving
memorial to the Holocaust. Five tall, open glass towers, under which
you can walk, have the numbers of people who lost their lives as a
result of the atrocities.
As you
walk underneath
there are grills
from which steam periodically escapes from the underground railway.
This, along with the simplicity of the monument and the staggering
quantity of "numbers" is very evocative.
In the afternoon we felt that we were quite up to completing the beginning part of the heritage trail which we had not done in the morning. We retraced the trail to where we had joined it at King's Chapel Burying Ground and arrived at another burial ground, this time the Old Granary Burying Ground, which has the graves of Paul Revere, Samuel Adams and John Hancock. From here it was but a short walk to the Massachusetts State House with it's grand golden dome. We didn't go inside to see it's most famous feature which is apparently a wooden "sacred cod", which symbolises the wealth Boston accrued from its fisheries. It hangs in front of the speaker and faces in different directions according to which party is in office. We were now on the open space of Boston Common.
One morning we walked down to the harbourfront and looked at the small boats there, sitting on a beautiful blue sea in the sunshine. Walking along the waterfront we soon reached the splendid Aquarium. We spent the rest of the morning there looking at all the various exhibits, some of which were in the most enormous central tank, around which a spiral staircase gave excellent views of fish at varying levels. There were also penguins and many educational and informative areas. We decided to have a light lunch in the cafe, which turned out to be rather a mistake as it was virtually inedible and not cheap either. As we sat in the cafe though we could watch the small boats in the harbour and one in particular which was moored created a little diversion when a young man and woman, obviously having their lunch breaks from city jobs, climbed aboard and sat and ate their packed lunches, bobbing up and down with the tide.
In the afternoon we went to North Station, near our hotel and got on the T, the Boston underground system, to go over the river to Cambridge. Once there we walked around the Harvard campus which was very much alive with students at the beginning of term. There was also a visit from Nelson Mandela being prepared for with an outdoor stage and seating being laid out whist we were there.
In the evening we decided to go to Durgin-Park restaurant in Faneuil Market, which is reputed to be a Boston institution. Food we had been led to believe would be good but service would be impolite. Fancy a restaurant priding itself on that! There was a queue when we got there but I gather that is normal. We soon reached its head and a bossy waitress just pointed in the direction of the table and shouted "Over there".The table and decor were more of a cafeteria type than a restaurant and the place was absolutely heaving with customers so being rude must pay off. The food was good and not very expensive, even the lobster I noticed was not too much out of the way price-wise. We didn't order that thought as the menu didn't price it! Eric had an excellent steak and I had mixed seafood which was also good.It was a glorious warm autumn evening when we came out and people were enjoying it. Crowds were watching an Andes band perform at Quincy Market as we made our way back to base.
We later decided to complete the Freedom Trail and paid a visit to
Bunker Hill where an obelisk very like the Washington monument marks
the site of the first major battle of the revolution, fought there on
June 17th 1775. At it's base is a splendid statue of Colonel William
Prescott, the compatriot commander.
We also saw the USS
Constitution in Charleston Navy Yard. This latter was not involved in
the War of Independence but came into use in 1797 and defended
shipping from Barbary Pirates and later beat the British in the war of
1812. Known as "Old Ironsides" it never lost a battle.
Since writing this I wondered what this "War of 1812" was and discovered that it wasn't in any real sense a war, but a series of skirmishes, mostly naval, following the War of Independence. Britain was involved heavily in the Napoleonic Wars in Europe and tried to stop the United States from trading with France and other countries, as this would definitely not be in Britain's interest. When the USS Constitution was involved it won all it's encounters.
We had thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Boston with only one negative note. There did appear to be more of life's disadvantaged on the street there than in many other places. Numbers of street people and beggars were higher there than anywhere else we experienced in the US. Yes, and that did include New York, but you'll have to read all about that later.
A few days later we visited Lexington where the American patriots
gathered waiting for the arrival of the British troops. Captain John
Parker had ordered his 77 "Minutemen" to stand their ground and not to
fire unless fired upon.
It is not known who fired the first shot,
but by the end of the resultant battle eight of his men lay dead.
They are commemorated with an attractive statue of a minuteman on
Lexington Green.
There were no British casualties at Lexington and they pressed on to Concord where the Patriots were known to have stocks of supplies. News from Lexington incensed the locals and the next morning three hundred and fifty of the Colonists engaged the British troops at North Bridge, Concord resulting in three British deaths. It is a pleasant rural scene today. We were pleased to see a simple monuments to the British soldiers. The inscription on the monument is very poignant and about the absolute futility of wars and regretting the death of these sons of mothers "Now mourning across the sea".
These battles at Lexington and Concord, started by that first shot of unknown origin, henceforward known as "the shot heard around the world" were little more than skirmishes but enraged thousands of Massachusetts Patriots who pursued the British, and the rest as they say, is history.
Goodbye for now. the next installment follows.