Hi everyone!
I got up bright and early at 4am today and left Courtney's for Boston. I caught an über to the main train station. The driver was lovely but wouldn't believe me that it's summer in Australia right now - oh dear! Once at the station I caught the airport express train and checked in all good. For the first time all trip, my flight ran really smoothly. It left on time, one of the stewards was super nice and chatted to me for half the journey, I had a double seat to myself and a beautiful view upon landing. I even got a bit of sleep!! When we landed my case came out first. Everything was coming up Claire!
I caught a free shuttle to the metro station and then the train to the Chinatown stop. My hostel was just down the street but I couldn't check in yet so left my bags and went exploring. The lady on the front desk asked where I was from and when I said Australia she said "wilkommen!" Confused, I took about ten seconds to realise she thought I meant Austria. First the guy not knowing it was summer, now this! Sometimes I fear for humanity haha.
But luck was on my side once again. The sun was shining and I walked to Boston Common to see if I could join a walking tour, and one was leaving just as I arrived! The guide was dressed in 1770s costume and his name was Mark. He was hilarious. I joined the group a couple of minutes late so he made me tell the whole group I was from Australia. Lots of Americans in the group seemed bewildered that someone from that far away would want to know about their revolution.
I was quite the opposite though. I studied the American Revolution in Year 12 and absolutely loved it. I've always wanted to come here ever since and I was genuinely filled with excitement on the plane this morning!! Most of you probably know about it all already but here's a quick run down of why Boston is so important in American history.... When the English came over and colonised America one of the first colonies was here in Boston. Everyone lived here happily until the King of England decided to start taxing the people here for lots of things to pay off debts from previous wars fought in Europe amongst other things. Basically this annoyed the people living here and unrest began to develop. A few revolutionaries who I'll speak about further down started to spread revolutionary sentiment around and a couple of events like the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party created a spark that eventually led to an eight year revolutionary war which America won and thus became independent. Boston is pretty much where the revolution started.
The tour began and it stopped at some of the Freedom Trail stops (revolution places of interest) along the way. I'm going to walk the entire trail tomorrow and stop off at each place, but the guided tour provided a great overview with lots of interesting information.
The tour started in Boston Common, America's first public park which opened in 1634. It was covered in sunshine and beautiful. This is where the 2000 British soldiers sent out in response to the Boston Tea Party camped (more on that later). From here we could see the New Statehouse. This was built on the estate of John Hancock, the first guy to sign the Declaration of Independence. Apparently just two years ago they found a time capsule underneath here left by Sam Adams and Paul Revere, and it was disappointingly just full of junk!
Around the corner we reached the Park Street Church. It was built in 1809 after the revolution (1776), but Mark said it became one of few places where people could speak freely about their beliefs. I had always thought the northern American states were dead against slavery, but it turns out that Massachusetts was the first state to legalise slavery, the last state to desegregate public schools in 1954 and the Red Sox baseball team were the last team to have an African American player. Luckily Massachusetts was also the first to abolish slavery, but this was only because John Adams (another revolutionary) wrote the constitution for this state and basically wrote it to reflect his own views. Fortunately he was against slavery.
The church was previously a granary and for this reason, the cemetery located adjacent to it is called the 'Granary Burial Ground' and it opened in 1660. In here we saw the graves of three founding fathers:
- John Hancock, a rich guy who inherited his wealth from his parents. He entered the house of reps, met Samuel Adams and they became friends. He became the president of congress at the second continental congress in 1775 (basically a meeting of the 13 colonies to talk about overthrowing England). He was still the president of congress when the Declaration of Independence was written, so he was the first to sign it. He thought he would be the only one signing so signed quite big, but 55 other people still had to sign and he hadn't left them much room. I was taught at school that he signed large so that "King George III can read it without his glasses", but apparently that's wrong!
- Paul Revere, famous for his 'Midnight Ride' to Lexington and Concord to let everyone know "the regulars are coming!" (Not the British like everyone think, at that point everyone here was still considered British. The 'regulars' were the soldiers occupying Boston common). He was often sent as a messenger like this because he was a good horse rider.
- Sam Adams, a poor man who was head of the 'Sons of Liberty', a group who wanted revolution. He became friends with John Hancock who then funded the group. Next to his grave was the grave for the five people killed in the Boston Massacre, he wanted them buried next to him and remembered.
Next up we got to Old City Hall, the sight of the first public school in America. Over the road was the Omni Parker Hotel, in which room 303 is apparently so haunted by a ghost that they have now bricked over the door to it. Stephen King once stayed in the room upon his request and based his '1408' novel on it. Eek!
The Old South Meeting Hall was next, where revolutionaries started meeting after the Boston Massacre because their numbers grew so much and they needed more room. Then we went to the Old State House, opposite which the Boston Massacre happened. On the 5th of March 1770 a young boy started annoying a British soldier guarding a building here. The soldier whacked him with the end of his gun, making his ear bleed. The boy ran into Faneuil Hall and told the revolutionaries. A mob of 200 people then formed and were met by eight English soldiers, the leader of whom wanted peace. A huge man called Crispus Atticus approached one of the soldiers who shot him. The leader then went up to this English soldier and said "who gave you the order to fire?" Unfortunately all the other English troops heard was "FIRE!", so they did, and four other civilians died too. Samuel Adams took this as an opportunity to 1) call it a 'massacre' to spread anti English sentiment and 2) prove to the world that Massachusetts could govern themselves. So he gave the soldiers a fair trial and got his cousin, John Adams to conduct the trial. The soldiers were found not guilty. John Adams was obviously not very popular for a while as a result of this.
The last stop of the tour was Faneuil Hall which opened in 1742 and where the governor of Boston had his office. These days 300-400 people become American citizens here every month.
The tour was really interesting but if you can't tell from above, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with information (sorry for the novel written above!). I decided I wanted to do something a bit more interactive, so I walked to Boston harbour and went to the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum. I was lucky again and just made it in time for the 1.30pm tour. We started off in a replica Faneuil Hall with "Sam Adams" talking to us and as a group we had to shout things like "huzzah!" and "well said!" while also booing and stamping our feet at appropriate times. It was funny!
Then we went onto a replica of the ship the 'Eleanor'. The English taxed those in Boston heavily on lots of items, and the people here boycotted those and the taxes were repealed on all items except tea. As a result, there were three ships sitting in the harbour full of tea which by law had to be unloaded on their 20th day of sitting there. On the 16th of December 1773 (the 19th day) the Sons of Liberty dumped 342 crates of tea into the harbour, worth $1.8 million US in today's money. The English obviously were not happy and implemented the Coercive Acts which meant a military governor was stationed here and the port of Boston closed to the world. The economy collapsed and lots of people lost their jobs. This was the last straw and really upset a lot of people here. Tension built and built and less than a year later the first shots of the revolution were fired.
I got to chuck some "tea" into the harbour and then we were spoken to by a series of people in costume about the Tea Party. We went below deck on the ship and saw a crate from the actual day.
The museum was really fun and the guide was great at making it interactive and interesting. I enjoyed a chocolate chip scone and some tea in the tea rooms and then headed back to check in to my hostel. It's really nice and I'm in a room with four girls from China. I went for a quick look at the shops (Primark is here!) and then had some tinned soup for dinner. Now I'm relaxing in the room, this blog has taken me an hour to write. I apologise for the length today, but now the rest of the Boston posts won't be as long!!
A great first day and I loved seeing what I learned in 2010 come to life in front of me.
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
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