Boston’s Old State House: History in a Nutshell
By Todd Larson
This isn’t just the Old State House. It’s history in a nutshell.
The sheer number of uses, abuses and reuses this little brick building has endured over its 296 years is unprecedented in Boston history.
The Lion and Unicorn statuettes at opposite ends of the building’s Dutch gable tell you right off what it was built for: the government seat of Massachusetts Bay Colony, one of Great Britain’s 13 American colonies.
The Lion and the Unicorn that bookend the building’s eastern Dutch gable tell you right off what it was built for: the government seat of Massachusetts Bay Colony, one of Great Britain’s original 13 American colonies.
The original Boston Town House was built in 1657 at the bequest of Capt. Robert Keayne, First Commander of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. Overlooking the Town Port, the medieval-style wood building was situated at the intersection of King Street and Cornhill — today’s State and Washington streets — as Boston’s civic center. It contained a trading market on its ground floor and town and provincial offices with a meeting hall upstairs. Destroyed by the great fire of 1711, it was replaced by the present brick structure, which is attributed to the builder Robert Twelves.
The Royal Governor’s Council met right under the animals. In the adjacent Assembly Hall, citizens could hear their elected officials debate hotbutton issues of the day for the first time in the Englishspeaking world.
In the west wing was the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, where the state Constitution, the model for our nation’s Constitution, was drafted. On the first floor was a merchants’ business exchange, like in the old Town House. Future Declaration of Independence signatory John Hancock rented warehouse space in the basement.
Yes, this old house was ahead of its time, as Boston’s first mixed-use development and cradle of liberty.
The cradle rocked in 1761 when lawyer James Otis testified in the Council Chamber against the Writs of Assistance, which allowed British officers to issue search warrants against anyone at any time. This gave rise to our 4th Constitutional Amendment guarding against unreasonable searches and seizures. “Otis was a flame of fire,” said John Adams, “…then and there the child ‘Independence’ was born.”
The cradle that nurtured that child was the east-side balcony, from which King George III’s coronation and Royal Gov. Thomas Hutchinson’s appointment were officially proclaimed in 1760.
From that balcony, Hutchinson urged an angry, anti-British crowd to disperse when British soldiers killed Crispus Attucks, James Caldwell, Patrick Carr, Samuel Gray and Samuel Maverick in the Boston Massacre on May 5, 1770. Paul Revere's famous but inaccurate engraving of the Massacre became a propaganda tool for the independence cause. Today a circle of Belgian stones marks the site of that turning point in American history.
The next day, Samuel Adams asked Hutchinson to move his troops to Castle William for safety reasons.
To avoid more riffraff, Hutchinson granted Adams’ request – the Crown’s first concession to the Colonies.
On July 18, 1776, the Declaration of Independence’s first public reading took place on the balcony, from which it is read every July 4th.
Following the reading, the Lion and the Unicorn were pulled down and burned in a bonfire near Faneuil Hall. King Street was then rechristened State Street, in honor of the free States to which the colonists aspired.
In 1780, the balcony hosted John Hancock’s inauguration as Massachusetts’ first state governor. And, yes, George Washington stopped here, in 1789, before a cheering crowd honoring his 1781 victory over the British at Yorktown. In addition, the first passenger stagecoach to New York departed from the Old State House, in 1772.
Having outgrown their State Street quarters, the Massachusetts State Legislature relocated to a new, larger State House on Beacon Hill. This domed classical edifice was designed by Charles Bulfinch, future architect of the post-War of 1812 reconstruction of the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
On July 4, 1795, the new State House’s cornerstone was carried to the site by 15 white horses, each representing a state of the Union (the original 13 states plus the newly admitted Kentucky and Vermont), and was dedicated by Gov. Samuel Adams. The building was completed in 1798.
Thus the Old State House became a mercantile building with wine sellers, wigmakers, hatters, a restaurant and a post office — the nation’s first “shopping mall,” as well as Boston’s first adaptive reuse of a historic structure. The Masons met upstairs. After Boston was incorporated as a city in 1822, the Old State House became City Hall. In 1835, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison hid out in City Hall from a pro-slavery mob.
When City Hall moved to larger quarters in 1841, the Old State House really went commercial. It sprouted a porch, a storefront, and a mansard roof for a full third floor of retail and office space, and was plastered with signs.
In 1881, the Bostonian Society was formed to preserve this treasure as a Boston history museum. City architect George Clough restored it — Lion, Unicorn and all — to its colonial condition in 1882.
The Old State House remains a Boston History museum today.
Owned and operated by the National Park Service, it boasts two levels of exhibitions relating the roles this historic building and its city played in the American Revolution.
Exhibits include John Hancock's coat, tea from the Boston Tea Party, recorded testimony from the Boston Massacre trial, Boston Harbor paintings, and interactive history galleries.
But it still isn’t just the Old State House. You can rent the Council Chamber and Assembly Hall for dinners, weddings, receptions, and other uses fancier than warehouse space‌
…for the basement isn’t a warehouse anymore. It’s now a subway entrance — aptly named “State.” (Sorry, O Lion King!)