This is my Part Two of my incredible Boston Trip in April 2012. So to continue...
To the left is Quincy Market. It sits near Fanueil Hall. Inside this building on the first floor are a lot of different food shops - like a food court in a mall. Then you can go upstairs to tables or eat outside. Around the building in the plaza are lots of non-food stores, carts, etc... While I was there they had street performer competition going on. There were jugglers, singers, high school bands, you name it. There was even a person dressed all in gold, even their skin that was showing was painted. He/She stood on a box and was a living statue. He/She would move slightly to let you know they were real. Fun!
This is the Burial Monument of Paul Revere in Granary Cemetery. In this cemetery were buried: the Franklin Family (Benjamin's parents, siblings, etc), the 5 people killed in the Boston Massacre, and 9 signers of the Declaration of Independence.
When you walk around this cemetery - I could just see history every where! It is only a block from the Omni Parker Hotel I stayed in, and one block from the Captiol of Massachusetts.
Here is the grave marker of Samuel Adams, who was John Adam's cousin. One thing I learned about Samuel is that when he was at Harvard he wrote a paper about breaking away from England. No one had thought of that yet. He was the one who basically "fathered the Revolutionary War"!
On December 16, 1773, Adams spoke at a town meeting against the Tea Act. That evening, dozens of men dressed as Native Americans, boarded three tea ships that sat in Boston Harbor and threw the tea overboard. I had family members who participated in this!
In response to the Boston Tea Party, the British increased their restrictions on the colonists. Parliament passed the "Intolerable Acts" that not only closed the port of Boston but also limited town meetings to one per year. Adams saw this as further evidence that the British would continue to limit the colonists' liberty.
In September, 1774, Samuel Adams became one of the delegates at the First Continental Congress held in Philadelphia. He helped draft the Declaration of Rights. In April, 1775, Adams, along with John Hancock, was a target of the British army advancing on Lexington. They escaped, however, when Paul Revere famously warned them.
Beginning in May, 1775, Adams was a delegate to the Second Continental Congress. He helped write the Massachusetts state constitution. He was part of the Massachusetts ratifying convention for the US Constitution.
After the Revolution, Adams served as a Massachusetts state senator, lieutenant governor, and then governor. He died on October 2, 1803 in Boston.
In Boston there is a "red brick line" - much like the yellow brick road of Wizard of Oz. If you follow it from the starting point to ending point, you will be on The Freedom Trail. It is 2.5 miles long. It takes you all over Boston, Cambridge, Lexington and Concord to see historical sites. So as long as I was on the brick - I didn't get lost!
This cemetery was founded on February 20, 1659, when the town bought land on Copp's Hill from John Baker and Daniel Turell to start the "North Burying Ground". Now named "Copp's Hill Burying Ground", it is the second oldest cemetery in Boston (second only to the King's Chapel Burying Ground founded in 1630). It contains the remains of various notable Bostonians from the colonial era.
I went to the Boston Aquarium for a couple of hours one afternoon while it was raining. I do not know the names of fish by what they look like except a few. But ever since the movie "Nemo" I call them by their movie names. So...in the photo below youwill see Dory, Gill and others.
Below you see "Nemos" aka Clown Fish.
Every state of the union that I have visited, I have tried to go to their State Capitol building if I am anywhere near it. Boston is the Capitol for Massachusetts and it was only 2 blocks from my hotel. We had an hour tour by a wonderful lady who teaches US Constitution and had wit! On our tour was Arizona Representative from District 13 who just was appointed to take the seat of Richard Miranda. Our tour lady took him over to a guard who then took him inside the Massacushetts House of Representatives (in session!) and he got a really private tour. I thought that was very amazing.
This is a photo of inside the Senate.
This is the original firearm (musket) fired by Captain Parker on Lexington Green at the British!
Across the street from my Hotel was King's Chapel. King's Chapel was founded by Royal Governor Sir Edmund Andros in 1686 as the first Anglican Church in New England during the reign of King James II. The original King's Chapel was a wooden church built in 1688 at the corner of Tremont and School Streets, where the church stands today. It was situated on the public burying ground because no resident would sell land for a non-Puritan church.
1688 King's Chapel building (demolished)In 1749, construction began on the current stone structure, which was designed by Peter Harrison and completed in 1754. The stone church was built around the wooden church. When the stone church was complete, the wooden church was disassembled and removed through the windows of the new church. The wood was then shipped to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia where it was used to construct St. John's Anglican Church. That church was destroyed by fire on Halloween night, 2001. It has since been rebuilt.
During the American Revolution, the chapel sat vacant and was referred to as the "Stone Chapel." The loyalist families left for Canada, and those who remained reopened the church in 1782. It became Unitarian under the ministry of James Freeman, who revised the Book of Common Prayer along Unitarian lines in 1785. Although Freeman still considered King's Chapel to be Episcopalian, the Anglican Church refused to ordain him. The church still follows its own Anglican/Unitarian hybrid liturgy today. It is a member congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Association.
The photo to the left is taken inside. Notice the pews are boxes with little doors. There was no heating in the church. Families had their own box, would bring quilts and cover them while listening to the preacher. When one sits in the pews you can barely see over the box. That is why the podiums were raised so high so everyone could see! Amazing!
As I walked around Boston, I came across this Farmer's Market. Every time I walked through it I was so full from eating - I had no appetite to buy and eat anything else. But the fruit and veggies were beautiful! Smelled great too!
Our final night in Boston we decided to go to some of our favorite food stops one more time. We went for appetizers of Shrimp Coctail at a place called "Sail Loft". You buy the shrimp by the piece at $2.95. So you tell the waitress how many you want. They were big and fat! Caught locally and brought in every morning.
We then walked to the Italian area of Boston (just 5 blocks from the harbor) to Mike's Pastry for cannoli. His bakery shop is famous! Every where we went we saw people carrying these little boxes of pastry with his name on them tied in twine. We ate our desert there next!
Then we decided to randomly choose a hole in the wall italian restaurant. It had maybe 10 tables in it. It was a little pricey but the food was really good.
L-R: Sandi, Kathy Reyes, Becky ?, and Jeannie Myrick at dinner. And NO we didn't have any of the wine you see sittng on the ledge by us. We all had water.
The other fun piece of education we received when we first arrived in Boston was how to understand what people are saying. This is what we were told: if the word ends in an "a" you say "er" - example: idea would be ider (pronounced i-dee-rr); if the word ends in "er" you put an "a" instead - example: better would be betta; you never say the letter "r" in the middle of a word, example: park would be pawk, car would be caw.
Also if we read on the menu the word "schrod" it means Cod, and we were told what Haddock was, but I don't remember what the word was. These words go back to the Old English days of Boston.
As you can see, I had a fabulous time seeing parts of our Nation's Birth and areas where my ancestors were in fighting for our Liberty.
During the American Revolution, the chapel sat vacant and was referred to as the "Stone Chapel." The loyalist families left for Canada, and those who remained reopened the church in 1782. It became Unitarian under the ministry of James Freeman, who revised the Book of Common Prayer along Unitarian lines in 1785. Although Freeman still considered King's Chapel to be Episcopalian, the Anglican Church refused to ordain him. The church still follows its own Anglican/Unitarian hybrid liturgy today. It is a member congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Association.
