Old State House
Below this balcony the Boston Massacre happened in 1770, and the Declaration of Independence was read in 1776
The story
Before you is the Old State House. It was built in 1713 as the Town House: the first floor was a merchants’ exchange, and the colonial government met on the second. The royal governor, appointed by the British king, had his office here. From the balcony he read out royal proclamations, and a lion and a unicorn, symbols of the British crown, stood on either side of the facade. On the cold evening of the fifth of March 1770, in the square below the balcony, boys began taunting a British sentry. The sentry struck one of them, and a crowd gathered: laborers, sailors, onlookers. Seven soldiers and a captain came to the sentry’s rescue. The crowd surrounded them. Amid shouts, ringing church bells and confusion, one soldier was struck. He fired, and others opened fire too, though no order had been given. Five people died. By the next morning it was being called a “bloody massacre.” Today a cobblestone circle below the balcony marks the spot. And on the eighteenth of July 1776, Bostonians gathered in the same square and heard the Declaration of Independence read for the first time from this balcony. In another chamber sat the colony’s highest court. In 1761 the lawyer James Otis argued here against the writs that allowed British officials to carry out searches. He lost the case, but young John Adams, who heard him, later wrote that “then and there the child independence was born.”
Visiting
206 Washington Street; the entrance to State subway station is right in the building. The museum charges admission; hours at revolutionaryspaces.org. The building is reached only by stairs. The massacre circle can be seen from the street at any time.
Photos
Sources
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