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The Freedom Trail is a 2.5-mile trek across historic Beantown from Boston Common to the USS Constitution. Follow the red brick road to 17 colonial sites on this list:
HISTORY: A circle of stones marks the site where on the evening of March 5, 1770, British soldiers fired on a mob of American colonists, killing five of them.
Monument · Thompson Square - Bunker Hill · 101 tips and reviews
HISTORY: This monument commemorates the Battle of Bunker Hill, where the famous command "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes" was issued. The ambitious visitor may climb the 295 steps to the top.
HISTORY: Built in 1809-1810, gunpowder was stored in the basement during the War of 1812 & Samuel Francis Smith’s hymn, America (“My Country ‘Tis of Thee“) was sung here for the first time in 1831
Capitol Building · Beacon Hill · 51 tips and reviews
HISTORY: Built in 1798, the State House is widely acclaimed as one of the more magnificent buildings in the US. The golden dome, its most distinct feature, once made of wood, was most recently gilded in 1997.
Historic and Protected Site · North End · 59 tips and reviews
HISTORY: Starting from his home, Paul Revere set out on his famous midnight ride in 1775 to warn his compatriots that the British were coming. Built in 1680, it is one of the oldest houses in downtown Boston.
HISTORY: The original King's Chapel was a wooden church built in 1688 on this land that had been part of the town’s oldest burying ground. It was the first Anglican church in Puritan Boston.
HISTORY: The original school building was torn down in the mid-1700s; today, an 1856 statue by Richard Saltonstall Greenough of Franklin (who dropped out of Boston Latin) marks that location.
Historic and Protected Site · Downtown Boston · 23 tips and reviews
HISTORY: Built in 1729, this was where some 5,000 colonists gathered on December 16, 1773, for a protest that culminated that night in the Boston Tea Party.
Historic and Protected Site · Downtown Boston · 58 tips and reviews
HISTORY: Just outside the building, five men were among the first casualties in the Boston Massacre. The Declaration of Independence was proclaimed from the balcony in 1776.
1 S Market St (at Congress St & North St), Boston, MA
Historic and Protected Site · Downtown Boston · 201 tips and reviews
HISTORY: Faneuil Hall was built by artist John Smibert in 1742 in the style of an English country market, with an open ground floor and an assembly room. The hall burned down in 1761 but was rebuilt in 1762.
HISTORY: Dating from 1659, Copp's Hill was Boston’s largest colonial burying ground. Cotton Mather of the Salem Witch Trials rests here, and the British used the hill during the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775.
Charlestown Navy Yard (at Constitution Rd), Boston, MA
Boat or Ferry · Thompson Square - Bunker Hill · 75 tips and reviews
HISTORY: Built in Boston and launched in 1797, this is the oldest commissioned warship still afloat. In the early 1800s, the 44-gun Constitution fought Barbary pirates off the coast of North Africa.
HISTORY: The Common was used for public hangings up until 1817. In early 1965, 100 people gathered here to protest the Vietnam War, & speeches have been given here by Martin Luther King Jr & Pope John Paul III
HISTORY: Built in 1660, this cemetery is the final resting place of notable figures of the American Revolution, including Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, Boston Massacre victims & Elizabeth "Mother Goose" herself.