Old South Meeting House

Built in 1729 as a Puritan meeting house, Old South Meeting House was where Benjamin Franklin was baptized and where Phillis Wheatley, the first African American author, worshipped. In the years leading up to the American Revolution, colonists gathered there to challenge British rule. On December 16, 1773, more than 5,000 people met there to protest the tax on tea and heard Samuel Adams give the signal that started the Boston Tea Party. In 1876, Bostonians fought to save the building from demolition in the first successful historic preservation effort in New England. In the early twentieth century, it provided a forum for public speakers who were denied a platform elsewhere. Today, Old South Meeting House remains an active meeting place and museum where people encounter ideas.

Cambridge, Massachusetts · United States