Day 22
Grand Tour of the East Coast
Grand Tour of the East Coast
Ted and I got a late start, but this was not particularly suprising. Our first stop for the day was the State House, which overlooks the Boston Common. It, like the rest of Boston, looks better in the sun. Ted and I accidentally latched onto a guided tour group of loud high school students. If we concentrated, we could hear the tour guide over the din and learn something about the building. It's a beautiful building, albiet something of a hodgepodge of architectural styles. A central domed section is built in Georgian style, but two adjoining wings are Neoclassical. They seem to compete. I could tell that parts of the building needed restorative attention, especially in the House and Senate chambers.
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| Shiny Massachusetts state capitol. |
Stained
glass renderings of the seals of all thirteen original colonies, with
Massachusetts' in the center. |
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| A
mural of the battle at North Bridge in Concord, which started the
American Revolution. |
An
archaic dedicatory plaque for Boston Common. (Note, for instance,
"cattell" instead of "cattle.") |
The State House stands near the beginning of the Freedom Trail, a brick (and sometimes paint) line winding along the sidewalks of Boston across the Charles River all of the way to the Bunker Hill monument. Along the way stand numerous buildings and cemetaries, some more interesting than others, but all historic in one way or another.
Some early American luminaries are buried in crowded cemetaries along the trail, such as Paul Revere and John Hancock. Their graves are marked by elaborate stones added long after their deaths. Older Puritan headstones, emblazoned with creepy "death's heads" (winged skulls) held more interest. Ted identified the headstone that apparently inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne to write The Scarlet Letter. He must have had a vivid imagination, because it looked about like the other gravestones I saw.
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| Paul
Revere's original grave marker, which is dwarfed by a Victorian-era
monument built alongside. |
The
gravestone of Hester Prynne's real-life antecedent. |
Our stops at most sites were brief, so the various meeting houses and churches run together in my mind. We followed the trail over the Charles to the Charlestown Naval Yard. When Bethany said that she was going to live in Boston, the first thing I thought of (even before the Apollo Guidance Computer) was the USS Constitution, which is berthed there. It is the oldest comissioned warship afloat, probably the oldest ship still floating period. To my disappointment (and especially to Ted's), we discovered that the ship was not open for visitors that day. We could look at some of the exterior, but not very closely. Too bad.
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| Balcony
of the Old Statehouse, built in 1713. |
Tower
of Old North Church, where the "one if by land, two if by sea" signal
lanterns were hung. (Ted suggested a modern amendment: "three if by
air.") |
Main and mizzen masts of the USS Constitution. |
That was the extent of our sightseeing for the day. Ted had to go catch his plane, but we had just enough time to return to Bethany's flat for a quick meal before his departure.
Web
links
- Virtual
tour of the Massachusetts Statehouse
- Freedom Trail
- "Paul
Revere's Ride," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, on Wikisource
| previous: Day 21 MIT Museum |
Grand Tour |
next: Day 23 Charlestown Naval Yard |
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