Boston Freedom Trail

7. Old South Meeting House

Boston, MA

Book Now

One of the nation’s most important colonial sites, Old South Meeting House stands in the heart of bustling downtown Boston, open to the public daily as a historic site and museum. Old South Meeting House was a favorite stage in Boston’s drama of revolution, the place where colonists gathered time after time to challenge British rule in the years leading to the American Revolution. It was a center of lively and heated debate, where people from all walks of life could freely engage in dialogue that would change the fate of a nation. These gatherings were larger and more inclusive meetings than were ever held in the colony, earning the building a reputation as a hotbed of rebellion. Old South Meeting House is the place where, meeting by meeting, vote by vote, a revolution began. The Old South Meeting house was built in 1729 as a Puritan meeting house. It was the largest building in colonial Boston. The Old South congregation built their first wooden meeting house in 1669, but overcrowding became a problem and the congregation tore it down to build a new, more spacious brick meeting house in 1729. Members of Old South’s congregation included African-American poet Phillis Wheatley, patriot leader Samuel Adams, William Dawes, who rode with Paul Revere to Lexington and Benjamin Franklin. Standing in the center of town, the Old South Meeting House was colonial Boston’s largest building and was used for many public gatherings as well as for worship. In Boston, meetings too large for Boston’s town hall, Faneuil Hall, were held at the Old South Meeting House because of its great size and central location. Old South Meeting House has an enormous 1768 tower clock created by Gawen Brown that is still working today. The Old South Meeting House clock is the nation's oldest American-made tower clock still operating in its original location. The 876-pound bronze bell that now strikes the Gawen Brown tower clock was made at the Paul Revere & Sons Bell & Cannon Foundry in 1801 for the town of Westborough, Massachusetts, where it rang out from a series of churches. In 2011, Revere’s bell was installed at the Old South Meeting House. In the years leading up to the American Revolution, Boston’s anger at British taxes and policies exploded during town meetings. Many of these meetings were too large for Faneuil Hall, the usual meeting place for the Town of Boston, so they were moved to the Meeting House. Old South Meeting House was the scene of some of the most dramatic and stirring meetings leading up to the American Revolution and as a result it developed a notorious reputation in Britain. Samuel Adams recorded: “The transactions at Liberty Tree were treated with scorn and ridicule; but when they heard of the resolutions in the Old South Meeting-house, the place whence the orders issued for the removal of the troops in 1770, they put on grave countenances.” Old South Meeting House was much larger than Faneuil Hall, which was then less than half its current size. Faneuil Hall could hold no more than 1300 people, while Old South Meeting House could hold as many as 6,000 people! Old South Meeting House was in a convenient and strategic location midway between the populous North end and the expansive South end of Boston, just a short walk from Faneuil Hall. On March 5, 1770, increasing tensions erupted when British soldiers killed 5 men in what became known as “The Boston Massacre.” The next day, an angry assembly gathered at Faneuil Hall sent a committee to tell the Lieutenant Governor “that the Inhabitants and Soldiery can no longer dwell together in safety.” The assembly agreed to hold a Town Meeting at 3 pm. By the afternoon, widespread frustration had swelled the meeting to include thousands, and so it was moved from Faneuil Hall to the Meeting House. Inside the Meeting House, the committee announced that one regiment would be removed to Castle William in the harbor, but, led by Samuel Adams, the crowd cried out, “Both regiments or none!” Adams and his committee again visited Hutchinson, and Adams said: “If you, or Col. Dalrymple under you, have the power to remove one regiment, you have the power to remove both…The voice of ten thousand freemen demands that both regiments be forthwith removed. Their voice must be respected, their demand obeyed.” The following morning, preparations began to remove both regiments to Castle William. In a letter to the Earl of Hillsborough, Hutchinson wrote, “I have represented to your lordship, that the authority of Government is gone in all matters wherein the controversy between the Kingdom and the colonies is concerned.” In England, members of Parliament balked at Hutchinson for being bullied by a little colony. A town meeting resolved to mark the anniversary of “The Boston Massacre” with a public speech “to commemorate the barbarous murder of five of our Fellow Citizens on that fatal Day, and to impress upon our minds the ruinous tendency of standing Armies in Free Cities.” Each year from 1772 to 1775, these massive gatherings of men, women and children were held at Old South Meeting House to commemorate the anniversary of the Boston Massacre, with rousing speeches by patriots John Hancock, Benjamin Church and Dr. Joseph Warren. Each year, the speaker and the people repeated the lines, “to impress upon on minds, the ruinous tendency of standing Armies,” a remembrance that kept outrage over the Boston Massacre alive. Yet it was the meeting that took place on December 16, 1773 that sealed Old South’s fate as one of this country’s most significant buildings. On that day, over 5, 000 men crowded into Old South and joined in a fiery debate on the controversial tea tax. When the final attempt at compromise failed, Samuel Adams gave the signal that started the Boston Tea Party. The Sons of Liberty led the way dumping 342 chests of tea into the harbor at Griffin’s Wharf. Old South Meeting House's reputation as a patriot meeting place had dire consequences for the building during the American Revolution. When war broke out in April of 1775 with the battles of Lexington and Concord, the British retreated to Boston and occupied the town. The Continental Army besieged Boston for nearly a year. While patriots fled the city, British troops destroyed and vandalized visible symbols of the patriotic cause. The “Redcoats” gutted the interior of the Old South Meeting House. They tore down the pews, the pulpit, and the galleries and burned them for fuel. Hundreds of loads of dirt and gravel were spread on the floor, and a bar was erected so the men could practice jumping their horses. In the east galleries, the officers enjoyed drinks while they watched the feats of horsemanship below. The British left the Old South congregation with a building unfit for occupancy. It took nearly 8 years for the congregation to raise the funds and restore the interior. Old South Meeting House was used as an active church until 1872. Despite its growing status as an historical landmark, the very survival of the building was threatened more than once in the 1870’s. The first threat came from fire, when almost all of downtown Boston was destroyed in a huge three-day blaze in November of 1872 known as The Great Boston Fire. The Old South Meeting House almost burned down; buildings across the street from it were lost. In 1876, the proud Old South Meeting House was auctioned off for the paltry sum of $1,350 for the value of its materials. The valuable downtown lot would then be freed for sale or lease. Copper was being removed from the building when a determined group of “twenty women of Boston” organized to stop the demolition and raise funds to save the building from the wrecker’s ball. They enlisted famous Bostonians, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Julia Ward Howe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Louisa May Alcott to rally people to help. Rousing speeches by abolitionist Wendell Phillips and others moved audiences to pledge funds needed to save this historic landmark. Their combined efforts raised over $400,000 – an enormous sum in the 1870’s – to purchase the building and its land. It was the first time that a public building in the United States was saved because of its association with nationally important historical events. The Old South Meeting House was saved and opened to the public as a museum and meeting place in 1877 by the Old South Association. It was one of the nation's earliest museums of American history. http://www.oldsouthmeetinghouse.org/