Then it was on to Paul Revere’s house. I just looked at it. I did not want to go in it. I have three postcards, including one of the statutes of Paul Revere. This Paul Revere House has been a National Historic Landmark since 1961, located at 19 North Square, Boston, in the city’s North End, now a museum of the Paul Revere Memorial Association. The original three-story house was built about 1680, making it the oldest surviving house in downtown Boston. It occupied the former site of the Second Church of Boston’s parsonage, home to Cotton Mather, that was destroyed by fire in 1676. Its first owner was Robert Howard, a wealthy slave merchant. Paul Revere owned this house from 1770 to 1800, although he and his family may have lived elsewhere for periods of time in the 1780s and 1790s. After Revere sold the house, it became a tenement with its ground floor remodeled for use as shops, including at various times a candy store, a cigar factory, a bank, and a vegetable and fruit business. In 1902, Revere’s great-grandson, John P. Reynolds Jr. purchased the building to prevent demolition. Restoration took place under the guidance of architect and historic preservationist Joseph Everett Chandler. In April 1908, the Paul Revere House opened its doors to the public as one of the earliest historic house museums in the United States. Despite the substantial renovation process which returned the house to its conjectured appearance around 1700, 90% of the structure is original to 1680, though none of the window glass is original. Its heavy beams, large fireplaces, and absence of interior hallways are typical of colonial living arrangements. The two chambers upstairs contain several pieces of furniture believed to have belonged to the Revere family. Immediately adjacent is the brick Pierce–Hichborn House, built about 1711 as an early Georgian house, and operated as a nonprofit museum by the Paul Revere Memorial Association. In December 2016, the Paul Revere Memorial Association opened a 3,500-square-foot visitor and education center connected to the house by an elevated walkway. Purchased in 2007, $4 million renovations allow the new education center to provide additional exhibit space on Revere’s Midnight Ride, his work as a silversmith, and his industrial work after the American Revolution. Obviously, it was not there when we were present in 1984. I thought it was a nice old house. Have you ever visited an old historic house?
The Boston Tea Party (1773)
The first stop was the Boston Tea Party ship. I remember the best part was that you got to throw over the side of the ship a box with tea in it that was on a rope. I think Joy enjoyed that too. I felt very patriotic throwing the tea box off the side of a boat, just like the Sons of Liberty on December 16, 1773. This was an act of opposition to the Townsend Tea Acts of May 10, 1773. Some of them disguised themselves as Native Americans as they destroyed a shipment of tea sent by the British East India Company. Thus, the Boston Tea Party became an iconic event in American history. Originally, this event was known as “The Destruction of the Tea.” The first use of “Boston Tea Party” in print was in 1834, sixty years later, as it gained popularity in the 19th century, since this event took on a legendary status in American history. The name succinctly captured the combination of locality (Boston), the commodity involved (tea), and the nature of the event (a political “party” or gathering as a form of protest). The Boston Tea Party arose from two issues confronting the British Empire. The first was the financial problems of the British East India Company and an ongoing dispute about the extent of Parliament’s authority, if any, over the British American colonies without seating any elected representatives. The British Prime Minister, Lord Frederick North (1713-1792), exacerbated these issues that produced a showdown that eventually resulted in the War of Independence, and ultimately the end of British colonialization and the emergence of the United States as a sovereign nation. The Boston Tea Party was the second American tax revolt against the British royal authority, the first occurred in April 1772, in Weare, New Hampshire, known as the Pine Tree Riot where colonialists protested heavy fines levied against them for harvesting trees. The British government considered this Boston Tea Party protest an act of treason, and responded harshly. Days later, the Philadelphia Tea Party, instead of destroying a shipment of tea, sent the ship back to England without unloading it. The Tea Party was the culmination of a resistance movement throughout British America against the Tea Act, a tax passed by the British Parliament in 1773. Colonists objected to the Tea Act, believing it violated their rights as Englishmen to “no taxation without representation.” They wanted to be taxed only by their own elected representatives and not by a parliament in which they were not represented. The well-connected British East India Company also had been granted competitive advantages over colonial tea importers, who resented the move and feared additional infringement on their business. The Boston Tea Party was a significant event that helped accelerate and intensify colonial support for the American Revolution. The English Parliament responded in 1774 with the Intolerable Acts, or Coercive Acts, which, among other provisions, ended local self-government in Massachusetts and closed Boston’s commerce. Colonists throughout the Thirteen Colonies responded to the Intolerable Acts with additional acts of protest, and by convening the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia, which petitioned the British monarch for repeal of the acts, and coordinated colonial resistance to them, culminating in the October 1774 Continental Association. Modern protesters often consider themselves a Tea Party movement, referring to this incident. Do you think that taxes or tariffs are a good idea?
Traveling on Boston’s Freedom Trail
I was not prepared for the roundabouts in the Boston area that confused me. I have never seen a city that had so many of these intersections with circles. I had a hard time getting in and out of these rotary circles. I had to learn that entering vehicles only needed to give way, not come to a full stop. However, the slow-moving traffic in the roundabouts made less noise than the stopping, starting up, speeding up, and braking at Red Lights and Stop signs. Columbus Circle in NYC has been there over a hundred years, since 1905, but I never knew that. In the New England region, they were called a “rotary.” I did not like them. That Friday morning of June 15, 1984, was a busy day of sightseeing in Boson. I was not going to drive, but leave my car at the hotel in this busy city. We took public transportation downtown from our Swiss Chalet Motor Lodge, about four miles south of downtown. Instead, we rode the guided Double Decker Freedom Trail Shuttle, $6.00 each for Margaret and I, and $4.50 for Joy. We stopped at Old Ironsides, the Tea Party Ship, the Old North Church, and Paul Revere’s house. Instead of walking the Freedom Trail, a 2.5 mile walk through history, marked by a red painted line or red bricks, we were going to ride a bus. I felt that it would be more efficient that way. I had a guide book and a map. What else did I need? Everything seemed to go well, as the first few stops were not a problem. However, then we got stranded for nearly an hour at one stop. I was upset, since a bus did not come along every fifteen minutes as promised. I finally decided to end our trip with a visit to Faneuil Hall. I had never heard of this place. Today it is a marketplace and meeting hall located near the waterfront that opened in 1742, now part of Boston National Historical Park, and a well-known stop on the Freedom Trail. It is sometimes referred to as “the Cradle of Liberty,” although the building and location also have ties to slavery. On October 9, 1960, this building was designated a National Historic Landmark. In 2008, Faneuil Hall was rated number 4 in “America’s 25 Most Visited Tourist Sites” by Forbes Traveler. Colonial merchant and slave trader Peter Faneuil offered to build a public meeting place in 1740. This Faneuil Hall has a long history of remodeling since then. Neighboring Quincy Market was constructed between 1824 and 1826. Quincy Market is commonly referred to as Faneuil Hall Marketplace, which is where we were. We had lunch at the Salty Dog, a seafood place that is still there today. The Salty Dog Seafood Grille & Bar specializes in fresh New England Seafood prepared traditionally with local ingredients with a friendly and casual atmosphere. The outside cafe was great for a place to eat and relax with a great meal on the historic bricks of Faneuil Hall Marketplace. Have you ever been to Faneuil Hall?
Boston, the capital of New England
Boston is the capital and largest city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in an area of 48 square miles, but only a population of 675,647 as of the 2020 census, less than a million people. Its high point was 1950 with 801,444 people. However, the Greater Boston metropolitan statistical area has a population of over 5 million, the largest metropolitan area in New England. Today Boston has a population of only 48% Non-Hispanic White, 22% Black, 20% Hispanic, and 8% Asians, a truly diverse and inclusive city. Ethnic African-Americans comprise 22% of the city’s population. People of Irish descent are 16%, and Italians are 8%. Boston was founded on Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by English Puritan settlers, who named this city after the market town of Boston, Lincolnshire, in England, the home of Isaac Johnson. During the American Revolutionary War, Boston was home to several seminal events, including the Boston Massacre (1770), the Boston Tea Party (1773), Paul Revere’s midnight ride (1775), the Battle of Bunker Hill (1775), and the Siege of Boston (1775–1776). Following American colonists’ independence from Great Britain, Boston played an important national role as a port, and as a manufacturing hub, as well as an educational and cultural center. Boston has the nation’s first public park, Boston Common, 1634, the first public school, Boston Latin School, 1635, and the first subway system, Tremont Street subway, 1897. Boston has emerged as a global leader in higher education and research, as the largest biotechnology hub in the world in 2025. Greater Boston has more than 50 colleges and universities, including Harvard and MIT, the highest-ranked universities in the world. With nearly 5,000 startup companies, the city is considered a global pioneer in innovation, entrepreneurship, and artificial intelligence. As a global city, Boston is among the top 30 most economically powerful cities in the world. Tourism also composes a large part of Boston’s economy that is led by finance, professional and business services, information technology, and government. Boston was the largest town in the Thirteen Colonies until Philadelphia and New York outgrew them in the mid-18th century. Since the 1820s, Boston’s population grew rapidly, as the city’s ethnic composition changed dramatically with the first wave of European immigrants. The Irish and Italian immigrants brought with them Roman Catholicism. Currently, Catholics make up Boston’s largest religious community. 57% of the population identify themselves as Christians, with 25% attending a variety of Protestant churches and 29% professing Roman Catholic beliefs. 33% claim no religious affiliation, while the remaining 10% express other non-Christian religious beliefs. Nearly a third of Bostonians use public transit for their commute to work. 34% of Boston households lacked a car in 2013, compared with the national average of 9%. 13% commute by foot, the highest percentage of pedestrian commuters in the country. Boston also has one of the highest rates of bicycle commuting. With the gentrification of Boston in the latter half of the 20th century, housing prices have increased sharply since the 1990s. Boston is sometimes called a city of 23 neighborhoods with varied degrees of wealth. What do you know about Boston?
Boston, the sports town
Besides the Boston Celtics, Boston is a great sports town. Fenway Park, with its left field green monster, is the home stadium of the Boston Red Sox that opened in 1912, the oldest professional baseball stadium still in use, older than Wrigley Field in Chicago that opened in 1916. Boston has teams in the four major North American men’s professional sports leagues, plus Major League Soccer. As of 2024, the city had won 40 championships in these leagues. Boston was the site of the first modern World Series, in 1903. Boston’s first professional baseball team was the Red Stockings, one of the charter members of the National Association in 1871, and of the National League in 1876. The Boston Braves were in the National League from 1912 until they moved to Milwaukee after the 1952 season, when I was in grade school. Since 1966, the Braves have played in Atlanta as the Atlanta Braves. Meanwhile, the American League Boston Red Sox always lost to the New York Yankees, ever since they let their star player, Babe Ruth, move to New York in 1919, where he became the Bambino with his curse on Red Sox baseball. The Boston Bruins were the first American member of the National Hockey League and an Original Six franchise, along with Montreal, Toronto, New York, Detroit, and Chicago. While the New England Patriots have played in suburban Foxborough since 1971, they were founded in 1960 as the Boston Patriots, changing their name after relocating. Those Patriots have won the Super Bowl after the 2001, 2003, 2004, 2014, 2016 and 2018 seasons. They share Gillette Stadium with the New England Revolution of the Major League Soccer. Harvard Stadium was the nation’s first collegiate athletic stadium made of concrete. One of the best-known sporting events in the city is the Boston Marathon, the 26.2-mile race which is the world’s oldest annual marathon, run on Patriots’ Day in April. The Red Sox traditionally play a home game starting around 11 a.m. on the same day, with the early start time allowing fans to watch runners finish the race nearby after the conclusion of the baseball game. Is your town a sports town?
Celtic Pride
After our little excursion at Lexington and Concord, it was on to Boston, where we spent two nights at the Swiss Chalet and Motor Inn, as it had a swimming pool and overlooked Boston Harbor. We were not aware that June 14, 1984, was Celtic Appreciation Day in Boston. The roads were more busy than normal because of this downtown celebration, that was all over the local TV stations that night as we settled in. I had forgotten that the Boston Celtics had won the NBA championship on June 12, 1984 at the Boston Garden, two days earlier. Celtic pride was busting out all over. The Boston Celtics were founded in 1946 as one of the league’s original eight teams, probably the most successful team in NBA history. They hold the record for the most NBA championships won, with 18, and most recorded wins of any NBA franchise. The Celtics were the founding members of the Basketball Association of America, one of the two leagues that merged to form the NBA. The Boston Celtics rose to dominance led by coach Red Auerbach, with Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, and Tom Heinsohn, when the Celtics won their first NBA championship in 1957, the year I graduated from high school. Russell, along with a talented supporting cast of future Hall of Famers, including Don Nelson, K. C. Jones, John Havlicek, Sam Jones, Satch Sanders, and Bill Sharman, would lead the Celtics into their greatest period in franchise history, as they won eight consecutive NBA championships from 1959 to 1966, as Bill Russell dominated Wilt Chamberlain. After Russell became the team’s player-coach, as well as the first African American head coach in any USA sport, they won back-to-back titles in 1968 and 1969. The Celtics entered a period of rebuilding after Russell retired in 1969. In the mid-1970s, the Celtics became contenders once again, winning championships in 1974 and 1976 under the leadership of head coach Tom Heinsohn with Dave Cowens, Havlicek, and Jo Jo White. The Celtics returned to dominance in the 1980s with the “Big Three” of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish, with a renewed rivalry with the “Showtime” Lakers. The Celtics won championships in 1981 and 1984, the year that we were there. The Eastern Conference champion Boston Celtics defeated the Western Conference champion Los Angeles Lakers in a seven-game series that year. Celtics forward Larry Bird averaged 27 points and 14 rebounds a game during this final series, earning the NBA Finals MVP award. The Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics rivalry was revived in 1979 with Magic Johnson and Larry Bird entering the NBA. After alternating wins with the Lakers, the Celtics won Game 7 and the series by a score of 111–102. The Boston Celtics had four Hall of Fame players, Larry Bird, Dennis Johnson, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish, while the defeated the Los Angeles Lakers that had six Hall of Fame players, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Cooper, Magic Johnson, Bob McAdoo, Jamaal Wilkes, and James Worthy. Coach KC Jones bested Pat Riley, both Hall of Fame members also. In March of 2025, the Boston Celtics were sold for 6.1 billion dollars to Bill Chisholm, billion not million, the most expensive sale of any sports team. I guess that they are worth it. What do you know about the Boston Celtics?
Yankee Doody Dandy
Songs have played an important role in developing a sense of pride about one’s country. “Yankee Doodle Dandy” is a traditional song that predated the American Revolutionary War. Today, it is the state song of Connecticut. The tune of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” was much older than its lyrics, well known across western Europe. The melody of the song may have originated from an Irish tune, “All the way to Galway,” or a Middle Dutch harvest song from 15th-century Holland, with nonsense words. The British with this song were insinuating that the colonists were lower-class men who lacked masculinity, emphasizing that the American men were womanly, feminine, or dandies. The lyrics came from a pre-Revolutionary War song originally sung by the British military officers, written in 1755 by a British Army surgeon, Richard Shuckburgh, while campaigning in Rensselaer, New York. They intended to mock the disheveled, disorganized colonial “Yankees” with whom they served in the French and Indian War. The British troops sang it to mock their stereotype of the American soldier as a Yankee simpleton who thought that he was stylish if he simply stuck a feather in his cap. The macaroni referred to wigs that a gentleman might wear. However, it then became popular among the Americans as a song of defiance. They added verses to this song that mocked the British and hailed George Washington as the Commander of the Continental army. By the Battle of Bunker Hill, less than two months after Lexington and Concord, this song would become a popular anthem for the colonial forces. By 1781, “Yankee Doodle Dandy” had turned from being an insult to being a song of national pride. The current version seems to have been written in 1776 by Edward Bangs, a Harvard sophomore who also was a Minuteman. He wrote a ballad with 15 verses which circulated in Boston and surrounding towns in 1776. A bill was introduced in the House of Representatives on July 25, 1999, recognizing Billerica, Massachusetts, as “America’s Yankee Doodle Town.”
“Yankee Doodle went to town
A-riding on a pony,
Stuck a feather in his cap
And called it macaroni.”
In 1942, there was a movie called Yankee Doodle Dandy about George M. Cohan, known as “The Man Who Owned Broadway,” starring James Cagney. Cohan wrote the popular song “Over There” during World War I. This film was a major hit for Warner Brothers, and was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, winning three, just as World War II was starting in the USA. In 1993, Yankee Doodle Dandy was selected for preservation in the USA National Film Registry. Have you ever heard the song “Yankee Doodle Dandy”?
Nineteenth century poetry around Concord
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1892), who was a descendant of the Mayflower travelers, described the first shot fired by the Patriots at the North Bridge in his “Concord Hymn” in 1837. He immortalized the events at the North Bridge in this poem that became important, because it commemorated the beginning of the American Revolution. For much of the 19th century it was a means by which Americans learned about the Revolution, helping to forge the identity of this young nation.
“By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled;
Here once the embattled farmers stood;
And fired the shot heard round the world.”
The American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1817-1882) wrote the poem “Paul Revere’s Ride,” in 1861, on the verge of the American Civil War. This poem commemorated the actions of the American patriot Paul Revere on April 18, 1775, although with significant inaccuracies. It was first published in the January 1861 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, a partly fictionalized poem story about Paul Revere. In this poem, Revere rides his horse through Medford, Lexington, and Concord to warn the patriots. Longfellow’s maternal grandfather, Peleg Wadsworth, was Revere’s commander on the Penobscot Expedition.
“Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.”
The poem fluctuated between past and present tense, sometimes in the same sentence, symbolically pulling the actions of the Revolution into modern times and displaying an event with timeless sympathies. Longfellow’s poem is not historically accurate but his “mistakes” were deliberate. He was purposefully trying to create American legends, much as he did with works like The Song of Hiawatha (1855) and The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858). Longfellow’s poem is credited with creating a national legend around Paul Revere (1734-1818), a previously little-known Massachusetts silversmith. His own obituary did not even mention his midnight ride, but instead focused on his business sense and his many friends. The fame that Longfellow brought to Revere, however, did not materialize until after the Civil War. Thus, we see the importance of poetry in developing attitudes about wars and patriotism. What do you know about Paul Revere and Concord?
Happy Thanksgiving! – 2025! – The First Thanksgiving
Since I am writing about Massachusetts, I thought it might be nice to write about the first Thanksgiving, as best we know about it today. In the fall of 1621, the English Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoag Native indigenous Americans shared an autumn harvest feast. This three-day celebration involving the entire village and about 90 Wampanoag, a symbol of cooperation and interaction between English colonists and Native Americans. The event later inspired 19th-century Americans to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday in the United States. The harvest celebration took place at the historic site of the Patuxet villages, as a celebration of the first successful harvest season of the colonists. Thus, the first Thanksgiving took place during the autumn of 1621 in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Although no one back then used the term “First Thanksgiving.” Many myths have surrounded this first Thanksgiving, since very little is known about the event itself. However, we do have two valuable firsthand accounts of that feast. The first account is from William Bradford (1590-1657) and his journal titled Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1646, while the other is a publication written by Edward Winslow (1595-1655) titled Mourt’s Relations in 1621. Neither chronicler of the event referred to it as Thanksgiving. Celebrating a fall harvest was an English tradition at that time, since the pilgrim colonists had much to celebrate. The 53 pilgrims at this first harvest celebration were the only colonists to survive the long journey on the Mayflower and the first winter in the New World. Disease and starvation struck down half of the original 102 Mayflower colonists. With the help of the local Wampanoag tribe, they had a hearty supply of food to sustain them through the next winter. Guests at the feast included 90 unnamed Wampanoag native Americans from a nearby village, including their leader Massasoit. One of these native Americans was a young man named Squanto, who spoke fluent English. He had been appointed by Massasoit to serve as the pilgrim’s translator and guide. Squanto (1580-1622) of the Patuxet tribe of the Wampanoags, had learned English prior to the pilgrim’s arrival, after he was captured by other English explorers and spent time in Europe as a slave, before returning to his homeland and the tribe in Plymouth. Squanto’s involvement as an intermediary in negotiating the friendship treaty with Massasoit that led to the joint feast between the Pilgrims and Wampanoag. The names of the pilgrims present at this harvest celebration included only four women, twenty-two men, with twenty-five teenagers and children. Neither Bradford or Winslow’s writings reveal what was served at the first Thanksgiving meal, besides fowl and deer, but guesses can be made based on the types of food they often wrote about like mussels, lobsters, grapes, plums, corn, and herbs. Thus, at least 90 Wampanoag natives joined 52 English people to mark a successful harvest. That is the simple story of the First Thanksgiving in the fall of 1621. What do you know or think you know about the First Thanksgiving?
Concord, Massachusetts
Today, the town of Concord, Massachusetts, has a population of 18,491 within 26 square miles, with a median household income of $184,086. Nashua, New Hampshire, is 23 miles north, while Boston is 19 miles to the east. The town center is near where the Sudbury River and the Assabet River join to form the Concord River. Concord was established in 1635 by a group of puritan English settlers. Besides the events of 1775, a rich literary community developed in Concord during the mid-19th century, centered around Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), and his old Manse house. Emerson was at the center of a group of like-minded Transcendentalists living in Concord. Among them were the author Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) and the philosopher Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888), the father of Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888), who lived at the Wayside Home. Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) was another notable member of Emerson’s circle. Today, their homes have become museums. They are buried on Authors’ Ridge in Concord’s Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. This substantial collection of literary talent in one small town led Henry James (1843-1916) to dub Concord “the biggest little place in America.” Concord has maintained a lively literary culture to this day. Notable authors who have called this town home in recent years include Doris Kearns Goodwin, Alan Lightman, Robert B. Parker, and Gregory Maguire. In 1849, Ephraim Wales Bull developed the now-ubiquitous Concord grape at his home on Lexington Road, where the original vine still grows. Welch’s, the first company to sell grape juice, maintains a headquarters in Concord. The Boston-born Bull developed his Concord grape by experimenting with seeds from some of the native species on his farm outside Concord, down the road from the transcendentalist’s authors. In the 20th century, Concord developed into an affluent Boston suburb and tourist destination. Concord is also notable for its progressive and environmentalist politics, becoming the first community in the United States to ban single-serving water plastic bottles made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) in 2012. Are you familiar with the importance of Concord?
Gene Finnegan Remembers Living Eighty Wonderful Years 