The Freedom Trail

Over two hundred years ago, colonial Bostonians led New England and America on the road to freedom and independence as years of unrest between 1761 and 1775 grew into insurrection. In Boston’s North End, Paul Revere, a middle-class artisan active in his community, planned the hanging of two lanterns in the steeple of the Old North Church on the night of April 18, 1775, and he and other express riders warned fellow patriots that British soldiers were on the march; by morning, militia had assembled in Lexington and Concord for the first military encounters of the Revolution. Boston’s strong heritage of community and freedom had deep roots, seen in places where people attended America’s first public school, governed their own church congregations, assembled and drilled local militia, and defended Puritan church land from Anglican intrusion. As British laws and acts, military occupation, and the Boston Massacre increasingly angered colonists, Boston men and women answered with town meetings, boycotts, protests, and the Tea Party under leaders such as James Otis, Sam Adams, and Joseph Warren. Less than two months after Lexington and Concord, patriots on Breed’s Hill in Charlestown repelled two British assaults before falling to the third in the bloodiest battle of the war to that point, and although the British won, their heavy losses encouraged continued resistance. By 1783, America had won independence, and the newly formed U.S. Navy frigate U.S.S. Constitution was built to help defend the young country against pirates, the British, and other threats.

Cambridge, Massachusetts · United States