Boston: Walking the Freedom Trail

The Freedom Trail is a route through Boston, visiting 16 important historic landmarks. We saw 14 of them on this sunny walking tour. Felt we should apologise for being British by the end of it!

John Hancock (businessman and, as we now know, smuggler) bankrolled the American Revolution. Samuel Adams led it. And Paul Revere (as well as the less-remembered William Dawes) famously rode to inform the revolutionaries that the British were coming, having seen a light signal on the spire of the Old North Church (1723).

The New State House has a gold leaf dome covering copper built by - Paul Revere! The dome was painted grey during WWII.

Outside the Old State House, British soldiers shot 5 people in 1775 in the ‘Boston Massacre’. Now it is believed they shot by mistake, having heard the word ‘fire’ shouted due to a nearby blaze. But Paul Revere drew a dramatic cartoon of the shooting and labelled it ‘The Boston Massacre’, which fuelled the start of the war of independence.

The Irish monument shows the Irish who escaped the famine and got to Boston, with the other half showing those left starving in Ireland.

The Omni Parker House Hotel is the oldest in the country and is where Dickens stayed and first read ‘A Christmas Carol’ in the US. It is said to be haunted.Read more