Boston 1775

Friday, 17 June 1774, turned out to be the last day the Massachusetts assembly met under the Crown. Before Gov. Thomas Gage shut them do...

On 14 March 1770, 250 years ago today , Josiah Collings went to magistrate Edmund Quincy to swear to this deposition, which he then had p...

What about that turpentine barrel on top of the pole on top of Beacon Hill ? The beacon pole had been standing since the 1630s. It got b...

At 9:00 A.M. on Monday, 12 Sept 1768, Bostonians (well, white men with enough property to qualify for the vote and the economic freedom to...

On 11 Sept 1768, 250 years ago today, Bostonians awoke to see a barrel newly positioned in the iron platform atop the pole on Beacon Hill ...

Yesterday I quoted Gov. Francis Bernard reporting to London about a big meeting in Boston on Friday, 9 September, where some people advoc...

On 7 Aug 1855, workers were building an addition onto the Massachusetts State House and strengthening its foundation on Beacon Hill . They...

The big Boston historical news this week was the discovery of a time capsule sealed in the cornerstone of the State House, laid in 1795. O...

It’s a Boston 1775 tradition around New Year’s to quote from the verses that newspaper apprentices printed and sold around that holiday. Th...

Yesterday I noted how the late 1790s brought a spate of new American newspapers called the Telegraphe , most of which went out of business...

“Mapping Revolutionary Boston” Week at Boston 1775 starts with a look at the “Copley Farm,” one of the pins in the upper part of the map on...

In The Whites of Their Eyes , his new book on the Battle of Bunker Hill , Paul Lockhart treats the story ( dramatized here ) of Abijah Willa...

Back here I featured the Old South Meeting House ’s January events devoted to fabric arts in the eighteenth century. Lynne Bassett’s progra...

This is a picture of the Boston Common in 1768, based on a watercolor by Christian Remick . At the rear is Beacon Hill, with John Hancock ’s...