Destination Spotlight

Massachusetts – Boston

The birth of America comes to life as you travel through Boston, Massachusetts. Discover the American trail of freedom while exploring one of the nation’s oldest and most historic cities. The Freedom Trail begins at the Boston Common and winds its way through downtown Boston, the North End and Charlestown ending at the Bunker Hill Monument. It tells the story of America’s first patriots as they fought for freedom against the royal army.

• Start the Freedom Trail at the oldest public park in America, Boston Common, purchased in 1634 by William Blackstone to be used as a militia training field.
• Walk through the massive front gate of the Granary Burying Ground and see the resting-place for Revolutionary-era patriots such as John Hancock, Robert Treat Paine, Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, Benjamin Franklin’s parents, and the victims of the Boston Massacre.
• Relive the Boston Tea Party at an award-winning exhibit that lets you hear the debates that led up to the decision to dump the tea into the Harbor when visiting the Old South Meeting House.
• Explore the historic building known as “the Cradle of Liberty” because of the protests against British taxation voiced here at Faneuil Hall.
• American heritage comes to life as students see the Boston Massacre site where British soldiers killed five colonists on March 5, 1770 and fueled the fire of unrest in the colony.
• Discover where Paul Revere walked, lived, debated, and fought for our great land when visiting the Paul Revere House.
• Go back in time to April 18th, 1775 at Old North Church, where Robert Newman hung two lanterns to warn that the British were coming, sending Paul Revere on his famous “midnight ride” to Lexington and Concord.
• Discover where Colonel Prescott spoke the famous phrase “don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes” at the beginning of the famous battle of Bunker Hill at Bunker Hill Memorial.

Did you know:

• The Boston Massacre was the culmination of civilian-military tensions that had been growing since royal troops first appeared in Massachusetts in October 1768.
• The Boston Massacre began when a young apprentice shouted an insult at a British officer.

Links:

Boston and the Freedom Trail

Old North Church