The Freedom Trail: A 1950s Invention That Rewrote a City's Past
How a Boston newspaper columnist invented the Freedom Trail in March of 1951, why the painted red line you may already be standing on dates to 1958, and what the official trail walks past at every stop.
Start
Boston Common: Where the Question Starts
Boston Common: Where the Question Starts
America's oldest public park (1634) and the trail's southern starting point. The Visitor Information Center at 139 Tremont marks the line's first painted segment.
Massachusetts State House: The Two Trails Cross Here
Charles Bulfinch's 1798 statehouse, the gold dome of the trail. The Shaw 54th Regiment Memorial across Beacon Street is the first stop on the parallel Black Heritage Trail.
Park Street Church: Where Abolition Got a Pulpit
1809 Park Street Church, the 217-foot steeple. On July 4, 1829, William Lloyd Garrison delivered his first major anti-slavery address from this pulpit, two years before he founded The Liberator.
Granary Burying Ground: Crispus Attucks at the Joint Grave
Founded 1660. Sam Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, and the five Boston Massacre victims are buried here. The Massacre Monument on the Common was dedicated 119 years after the event.
Old State House: The Massacre, and What Is Four Blocks Away
Boston's oldest surviving public building (1713). The cobblestone ring in the intersection marks the Boston Massacre site (March 5, 1770). Four blocks northwest: the demolished West End neighborhood.
Paul Revere House: The Survival That Was Not Inevitable
Built c. 1680, the oldest remaining downtown Boston structure. Restored 1907 to 1908 by Joseph Everett Chandler. The BRA wanted it cleared in the same urban-renewal wave that took the West End.
Old North Church: The Lanterns and the Upper Gallery
Built 1723 to 1726, Boston's oldest church. The lantern signal of April 18, 1775. The upper gallery was the colonial-era seating designated for enslaved and free Black congregants.
Copp's Hill Burying Ground: What Gets Marked, What Stays Unmarked
Founded 1659. The Mathers and Prince Hall are buried here. On the Snow Hill Street side: the unmarked graves of the free and enslaved Black 'New Guinea' community at the foot of the hill.
Best Time to Visit
Weekdays in the morning before the cruise-ship crowds, or late afternoon in spring and fall when the light reaches into the North End. The trail is open all year; January and February are cold but the cemeteries and exterior stops all read cleanly in winter. Sundays the Old North congregation holds services and the church interior is closed to tourists, but the Salem Street facade and the lantern-signal beat work without entering. The Visitor Information Center on Boston Common is open daily; the State House interior tour runs weekdays during the legislative session.
Pro Tips
- •The red line of the trail is mostly painted; in some downtown blocks the line is set into the sidewalk as a row of bricks. Watch your feet at the curb cuts where the line crosses streets, especially around the Old State House intersection.
- •Stop 5 anchors on the Old State House exterior and the cobblestone Massacre ring in the intersection. The audio works without entering the museum. The interior is the Revolutionary Spaces site and charges admission.
- •Stop 6, the Paul Revere House, anchors on the North Square facade. The interior charges admission and is worth it for the seventeenth-century rooms, but the audio works from the plaza without entering.
- •Stop 7, Old North Church, has Sunday service hours during which the interior is closed to tours; the lantern beat is anchored on the Salem Street spire and works from the sidewalk.
- •Stop 8, Copp's Hill, slopes downhill toward Snow Hill Street. The unmarked-graves beat is anchored on the western slope; walk to the Snow Hill Street side of the cemetery for the closing view of the harbor.
- •The Black Heritage Trail mentioned at Stop 2 and Stop 8 is a separate route administered by the National Park Service through the Boston African American National Historic Site, headquartered on Beacon Hill at the Museum of African American History. The Roamer Beacon Hill tour walks that trail; this Freedom Trail tour names it and points to it.
- •Alfred F. Young, 'The Trouble with the Freedom Trail,' Boston Globe, March twenty-first, two thousand and four, is the published critique of the official trail's editorial frame that this tour leans on. Susan Wilson's Boston Sites and Insights, Beacon Press, two thousand and four, is the canonical multicultural-trails guide for Boston. If the editorial argument holds your attention, those are the two readings.
Safety & Precautions
- The trail passes through working downtown Boston streets with active vehicle traffic. Cross at signals, especially at the Old State House intersection where the cobblestone Massacre ring is set in the middle of the lanes.
- Granary Burying Ground and Copp's Hill Burying Ground are active historic cemeteries. Walk on the paths, do not rub the slate headstones, and respect the burial ground conduct posted at each entrance.
- Copp's Hill slopes; some paths are uneven cobblestone or worn brick. Wear flat closed shoes.
- The North End sidewalks between Stops 5 and 6 are narrow in places, especially on Hanover Street during evening dinner hours. The audio works on either side of the street if one side is crowded.
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