Boston National Historical Park

Last updated: January 7, 2023

I love that I was able to take nine days and explore New England. While that’s definitely not enough time to thoroughly visit Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont, it was enough time to get just a taste to know I want to go back!

My main goal while in Massachusetts was to visit Salem and see all 15 National Park Service sites, but only had time for 13 (and I barely got those in!). Not to mention Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. Oh well… I guess I’ll have to go back, darn it. 😉

The Boston National Historical Park includes a 2.5 “Freedom Trail” that reveals the revolutionary Bostonians who propelled the New World colonies from colonialism to independence. This includes Feneuil Hall, the Paul Revere House, Old North Church, Bunker Hill, the Charlestown Navy Yard, and the USS Constitutional warship. We only had time to visit one and I chose Feneuil Hall.

Feneuil Hall opened in 1743, and was the site of several speeches by Samuel Adams, James Otis, and others encouraging independence from Great Britain. It is now part of Boston National Historical Park and a well-known stop on the Freedom Trail. It is sometimes referred to as “the Cradle of Liberty”.

So, I hate to go all Wikipedia on you, but I found the uses for this building fascinating and want to share that this has been the place where in 1890, Republican legislator Julius Caesar Chappelle made a speech “At the Cradle of Liberty” in support of the Federal Elections bill that would help give Black people the right to vote. The Faneuil Hall event was covered by the media in the United States, and the speech by Chappelle appeared on the front page of The New York Age. Afterwards, US leaders such as Kennedy, Romney, and Obama, have delivered speeches and signed bills. Interestingly enough, it’s also still used for political debates between Massachusetts candidates as well as political shows, such as The O’Reilly Factor.