Boston Freedom Trail

3. Park Street Church

Boston, MA

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With a giant building looming and surrounding its exterior, the Park Street Church has been a mainstay to downtown Boston since its construction in 1809. Despite the tourism hub of Quincy Market and nearby Financial District built up around it, the church has been protected as a historical and religious landmark. The church was founded in 1804 and remains an active Conservative Congregational church with 1,000 members and about 2,000 attendees each Sunday. Marked by a distinctive 217 feet high white steeple, the church was the tallest building in the US until 1846, and the tallest in Boston until 1867. Its design resembles a London church by Architect Sir Christopher Wren, architect of the Wren Building in the southern historic city of Williamsburg, Virginia. In 1812, the church’s basement held gunpowder during the war of 1812. In 1826, Edward Beecher was appointed pastor of the church. He was the brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and son of Lyman Beecher, a well-known abolitionist. Some of the major milestones in the ban of slavery took place here, including William Lloyd Garrison’s 1829 address to the Colonization Society. The classic song ‘My Country Tis of Thee” also made its debut inside this place of worship on Independence Day in 1831, sung by Samuel Francis Smith.