Thursday, May 24, 2012

Buildings of Colonial Boston

Sualeh Fatehi
4/22/2006


The Old State House

Old State House
The Old State House is one of the oldest surviving public buildings in Boston. In its modern setting, it is still pivotal, occupying an island in a traffic junction. This is the site of Boston's first Town House of 1657. The original wooden building burned in the 1711 King Street (State Street) fire, and the interior and some of the brick walls of the rebuilt building burned in the fire of 1747. The new brick building is in typical Georgian style, with the windows in expensive glass panes of 12 over 12. Typically Georgian are the string courses found at intervals for horizontal relief in the building. The British emblems of the Lion and the Unicorn adorn the East face of the building. They were taken down and burned during the revolution, but have since been restored. The East side has a stepped pediment, showing the Dutch influence on British architecture, along with the segmental arch. The architect, however, is unknown. The Old State House building has undergone many architectural and structural changes, including the addition of a subway station in the basement that John Hancock once rented. The earthquake of 1755 dislodged many bricks, and S-ties mark the places where the walls had to be secured.

The balcony of the Old State House has overseen many historic events. Just underneath the balcony is the site of the Boston Massacre in 1770, when British soldiers fired into a crowd, killing five men. Today, a paving stone circle marks this spot. Fugitive slave Crispus Attucks was among the five victims who died that day in the Massacre. Also, in 1776, another historic event took place on the balcony of the Old State House. The Declaration of Independence was first proclaimed from here to an assembled crowd of colonists.


Paul Revere House

Paul Revere House
The Paul Revere House is downtown Boston's oldest building and one of the few remaining from the colonial era. The home was built about 1680 of timber. The main block of the three-story house consisted of four structural bays. There are heavy framing posts and overhead beams. The large fireplaces and absence of hallways are typical of colonial style houses. The L-shaped townhouse contained big rooms and had a second-floor roof overhang and casement windows. A two-story lean-to was added in the L of the house. The original house has a steep roof, but in the mid-eighteenth century, the roofline facing the street was raised substantially to add another floor, and bring the house in line with the Georgian architectural style. The roof has since been restored in the 1907-1908 restoration, and the lean-to removed. Paul Revere and his family of 16 children owned the home from 1770 to 1800, and since then, this house has been called the Paul Revere House.


Old North Church (Christ Church)

Old North Church
The Old North Church is the oldest active church building in Boston, and was built in 1723. The site of Old North Church was a piece of pasture near the top of Copp's Hill, which was the highest elevation in the North End. Timber for the church came from forests around York, Maine, and the bricks were baked in kilns in Medford. The building is designed in the Georgian style. The inspiration comes from the works of Christopher Wren, a British architect who was responsible for rebuilding London after the Great Fire. When a hurricane destroyed the original steeple in 1804, a replacement steeple was designed by Charles Bulfinch. Unfortunately, this steeple too was toppled by a hurricane Carol in 1954. The current steeple uses design elements from the original and the Bulfinch version. At its tip is the original weathervane.


King's Chapel

King's Chapel
King James II ordered an Anglican church to be built in Boston to ensure that the Church of England continued in America. Naturally none of the colonists were interested in selling land for the Church, so the King ordered the Governor to seize a corner of the old burying ground. The burying ground is the final resting place of many colonists, including John Winthrop, the Colony's governor, Hezekiah Usher, the colony's first printer and Mary Chilton, the first woman to step off the Mayflower.

King's Chapel first was a small wooden meeting house at the corner of Tremont and School Streets. This is where the church stands today. Architect Peter Harrison designed the present building and construction began in 1749. The stone building was made of Quincy and Braintree granite. The granite was not quarried, but gun-shotted out from surface beds. A bell made in England was hung in 1772. When it cracked in 1814, a new one, the largest made by Paul Revere was hung in 1816. This bell is still rung before every service. The steeple was left unfinished for lack of funds, and looks incomplete to the present day. The front porch and columns are late Georgian, and added later. They are wooden, but made to look like stone.


Old South Meeting House

Old South Meeting House
The Old South Meeting House was built in 1729 as a Puritan meeting house. This church is famous in that Boston's famous son, Benjamin Franklin was baptized here. The Old South Meeting House was the largest building in Boston, and following the Boston Massacre in 1770, a crowd of several thousand people assembled here to protest against the British troops in town. Samuel Adams persuaded Governor Hutchinson to remove the British troops to Castle William. Another historic event associated with this church is the protest against the tea taxes that led to the Boston Tea Party. In 1773 over 5,000 people crowded into Old South to debate the controversial tea tax. When all attempts at compromise failed, the Sons of Liberty led the way dumping 342 chests of tea into the harbor at Griffin's Wharf. To punish the colonists for the Boston Tea Party, British soldiers ripped out the pews and pulpit and used them for firewood. The church was desecrated, and used as a riding school through the Revolution. In 1783, after sustaining enormous damage, Old South was restored by the congregation as a place of worship.


Old Corner Bookstore

Old Corner Bookstore
The Old Corner Bookstore was built in 1712 as an apothecary shop, office and home of Thomas Crease. It is one of Boston's oldest surviving structures. This building has a gambrel-roof which was typical of the kinds of dwellings and shops that lined the streets of Boston in colonial days. In 1828, after occupation by Brimmer and by Clarke, Carter & Hendee first used the shop as a bookstore. The Old Corner Bookstore really became a famous literary center when the Ticknor and Fields Publishing House was located here from 1832 to 1865. Many famous books were published here, including The Scarlet Letter, Walden, and the Atlantic Monthly magazine. Many famous literary figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and others brought their manuscripts here to be published. In recent times, the Boston Globe Store founded by The Boston Globe newspaper occupied the building. The present tenant strangely enough is Ultra Diamonds.


Bibliography

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URL: http://www.bostonhistory.org/old_state_hs_hist.php
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URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Revere_House
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URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Revere_House
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URL: http://www.oldnorth.com/
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URL: http://www.kings-chapel.org/history.html
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URL: http://www.celebrateboston.com/sites/kingschapel.htm
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URL: http://www.cityofboston.gov/freedomtrail/kingschapel.asp
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URL: http://www.oldsouthmeetinghouse.org/history/
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URL: http://www.celebrateboston.com/sites/oldsouthchurch.htm
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URL: http://www.nps.gov/bost/OSMH.htm
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URL: http://www.nps.gov/bost/Old_Corner_Bookstore.htm
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URL:http://www.celebrateboston.com/sites/oldcornerbookstore.htm
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URL: http://www.cityofboston.gov/freedomtrail/oldcorner.asp