Old South Meeting House Audio Guide

Old South Meeting House: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Old South Meeting House

   This section of the Mappu audio guide to the Old South Meeting House highlights Welcome to Old South Meeting House and points out what to notice during your visit.

   Welcome to Old South Meeting House, standing at the corner of Washington Street and Milk Street in the Downtown Crossing area of Boston. Today the office towers and shopping crowds of the modern city press in all around it, but this brick building with its spire has been here since 1729. It began as a Puritan meeting house, home to a Congregational congregation, and in colonial Boston it was the largest building in town. That size turned out to matter. When the colonists needed a room big enough for thousands of people to argue, vote and shout, this was the room they chose. Over the years it earned a reputation as a hotbed of rebellion, and it has been called the Sanctuary of Freedom. Over the next few stops, we will look at the building itself and the people who raised it. We will sit in on the protest meetings that rattled royal governors, and we will follow the story of the women who saved it from demolition. Then we will ask what a place like this means in a city that now treats its own past as a treasure. It is one of the historic sites of Boston National Historical Park, and it is a National Historic Landmark.

2. 02

   A Plain Brick Meeting House

   This section of the Mappu audio guide to the Old South Meeting House highlights A Plain Brick Meeting House and points out what to notice during your visit.

   Let us start with the building itself. Old South was built in 1729 by Joshua Blanchard, a master mason who lived from 1692 to 1748. Blanchard went on to build another Boston landmark, Faneuil Hall, between 1740 and 1742. So two of the city's most famous old rooms came from the same practiced hands. Here is something that may surprise you. Architecture critics have not always been generous about this place. A newspaper in 1877 called it a particularly ugly brick building that was noteworthy for its history. A writer in 1914 called the design severely plain, and said the spire, while agreeable enough, lacked the grace of the older spires of Old North Church in Boston and Trinity Church in Newport. One commentator in 2004 went further and said it had been preserved mainly for its history rather than its looks. Yet Bostonians have long loved it. In 1910 a writer observed that Old South, the Old State House and Faneuil Hall were the three old buildings Bostonians were proudest of. Maybe the plainness is the point. A meeting house is built for gathering, not for show. When you look at that simple brick form, picture a hall designed to hold a crowd.

3. 03

   The Hotbed of Rebellion

   This section of the Mappu audio guide to the Old South Meeting House highlights The Hotbed of Rebellion and points out what to notice during your visit.

   Now step into the years before the American Revolution. Patriots and Loyalists alike met here to argue and inform, and the gatherings were larger and more inclusive than any the colony had held before. On June 14, 1768, a meeting moderated by James Otis compelled Governor Bernard to arrange the removal of a warship that had been stationed in Boston harbor to enforce impressment and customs regulations. Then came the Boston Massacre of March 1770. A day-long session of the people afterward forced the withdrawal of the British garrison to Castle William in the harbor. Think about that. Public meetings in this very hall were winning concessions from royal authority. The most famous gathering was on December 16, 1773. Over 5,000 men crowded in to debate the controversial tea tax. That evening word arrived that Governor Hutchinson had refused to let three ships, the Dartmouth, the Beaver and the Eleanor, leave port without unloading their tea. Samuel Adams rose and declared that this meeting could do nothing more to save the country. Tradition holds that this was a pre-arranged signal, and war whoops broke out. The crowd headed for the harbor, where it took nearly three hours to dump 340 chests of tea into the water. The next day John Adams wrote that the destruction of the tea was so bold, so daring, so intrepid and so inflexible that he could only consider it an epoch in history.

4. 04

   Twenty Women Save the Day

   This section of the Mappu audio guide to the Old South Meeting House highlights Twenty Women Save the Day and points out what to notice during your visit.

   Here is a twist that gives this building a second claim to fame. Long after the Revolution, Old South faced the wrecker's ball. A determined group calling themselves the 20 women of Boston organized to save it. They did it by enlisting some of the most famous people in the city. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Julia Ward Howe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Louisa May Alcott all helped rally people, secure funds and spread the word. Their combined efforts raised an enormous sum to purchase the building and its land. It was the first time a public building in the United States was saved because of its association with nationally important historical events. That makes Old South one of the country's first public historic conservation efforts, and one of the earliest museums of American history. It has been open to the public as a museum and meeting place since 1877, thanks to the original Old South Association. In more recent years the story has kept moving. The interior was repainted in 2016 with support that included a gift from the developer of the nearby Millennium Tower and funds from the Massachusetts Cultural Facilities Fund. In January 2020 the Old South Association merged with the Bostonian Society, which operates the Old State House, creating a new organization called Revolutionary Spaces.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   This section of the Mappu audio guide to the Old South Meeting House highlights Before You Head Off and points out what to notice during your visit.

   As you stand outside Old South Meeting House, take a moment with the contrast. Behind you, the modern downtown hums along. In front of you, a building that once held thousands of people in heated debate, and that was nearly lost before a group of determined women decided it deserved to stay. Today it is still a place for civic dialogue and free expression in the heart of downtown Boston, not just a monument to old arguments. The Freedom Trail invites visitors to experience history where the Boston Tea Party began, and to add their own voice to it. Try looking at the spire and then at the towers around it, and ask yourself which of the two the colonists would have found more astonishing. Then consider the other great meeting places of the city's story, like the Old State House and Faneuil Hall, and how each one tells a different part of the same drama. There is plenty more to discover just a few steps along the trail.