My exploration of Boston began a bit late in the day. After a therapeutic morning massage, I had napped for hours in my room at the Four Seasons trying to sleep off a bad cold. When I awoke that afternoon the overcast sky had cleared, as had my head, and the Public Garden was green and inviting outside my bay window.
The concierge gave me a map of the area and pointed out a few area attractions, including the Freedom Trail, and the street where I had dinner reservations that evening. I was a little on edge because of my lack of familarity with the city. A bit dazed and wondering what I might happen upon, I walked out and crossed Boylston Street to the garden. It was a start.
I instantly felt at ease in the charming Victorian-style park. Bands of colorful tulips lined the paths surrounding an elevated bronze statue of George Washington and his horse. Tall weeping willows lined a central pond traversed by a swan boat. The many cherry trees in the park were in bloom and their blossoms fell like snow. While the park was busy with visitors it wasn't crowded. After meandering awhile, I walked on across the garden and soon came to an exit that lead toward Boston Commons.
The commons, although just as vibrant green, was a larger, yet simpler park by far. The people in it who weren't resting on benches were walking decisively across the commons on their way somewhere. As the Freedom Trail began in the park, I decided to look for the beginning of the narrow red brick trail that's lead millions of visitors down sidewalks and across streets to 16 historic sites. Might as well follow the trail for a bit, I thought, since I had an hour or two before dinner. I couldn't help but marvel at the striking, gold-domed State House high on Beacon Hill.
As I continued on the way, I noted Park Street Church and then the Granary Burying Ground. School children were listening to their teacher tell them about Paul Revere, Samuel Adams and other historic figures buried there. It's something we all have in common growing up in this country and learning about these heroes of history as children. Being in the place where they were buried hit home with me. They no longer seemed like characters out of story, but real men who lived and died.
I paused for a bit at the Benjamin Franklin statue at the Boston Latin School he briefly attended, then smiled to see a Starbucks next door. The old and the new make for such an interesting contrast in the city. Skyscrapers tower above historic churches, meeting halls and other civic buildings.
Soon I came upon the Old South Meeting House, which was built in 1729 by a Puritan congregation. It was the largest building in colonial Boston, according to the history books. A placard noted Franklin had been baptized there and that African-American slave and poet Phillis Wheatley worshipped there. Something about the old church beckoned me to go in.
There in the main hall the high white walls seemed to echo with the words of Samuel Adams and others who fomented the American Revolution by protesting the Boston Massacre, impressment of Americans into the British Navy and tax on tea. Here the Boston Tea Party was set off as 5,000 colonists heard Adam's secret signal. Later the British used the hall as a riding stable for their calvary as they occupied the city in response to such civil unrest. Our country might be different if not for some of the words said here. But eventual independence seems to have been inevitable.
I had sometimes worried before that the politics of our time was more antagonistic than it had ever been, that liberals and conservatives have too often demonized each other and were polarizing the country. But any current conflicts are a lovefest compared to the rancor between Tories/Loyalists and Whigs/Patriots, I was learning.
The Loyalists, only 15 to 20 percent of the population, were frequently tarred and feathered or otherwise punished by mobs of "Patriots" if they voiced their loyalty to the crown or were suspected of it. It was a brutal time, but perhaps not quite as brutal as our beginnings with witch burnings and overrunning of Native Americans. We've come a long way, and if we do continue to falter, still we have made much progress by eventually opening our eyes to wrongdoing time after time, and correcting it.
I can't help but think it's because men and women continue to speak out against what they perceive be injustice and debate public issues, as they did and continue to do in the Old South Meeting House, that our country has become more civilized. These days we are less prone to tar and feather those whose opinions differ from our own. Our individual rights and freedoms are more often protected.
After the Old South congregation moved to a different location the old meeting house was to be torn down, and would have been if not through the efforts of early historic preservationists, including Ralph Waldo Emerson. Their efforts started a national wave of preservation. It's fitting that the Old South Meeting House, a museum and historic site since 1877, set off that revolution as well.
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