“Boston is the only place that you can have a cold Sam Adams while looking at a cold Sam Adams” or so my grandson Augustus said to me as we were looking over Samuel Adams grave in the Old Granary Burying Ground in Boston. I’m fairly sure that he had been waiting quite a while to use that phrase in it’s proper location and context.
We spent the better part of the day walking the Freedom Trail in the older sections of downtown Boston with the grandkids Gus, Adelaide, and Eleanor. Boston has done a particularly good job of saving and restoring the landmarks from our Revolutionary War period (and before), immortalizing places such as the site of the Boston Massacre to the Old North Church. Every kid in America learns at one time or another about Paul Revere’s Ride or the story of “Old Ironsides” the U.S.S. Constitution.
It is quite different actually being here.
To be certain, this is where it all started.
The Freedom Trail starts in/on the Boston Common, itself quite the landmark as the oldest public space in our country. The Trail is easily followed by walking an indicated red brick line that has been placed in the sidewalks and streets of Boston. Along with an accompanying pamphlet-style guide map and well-placed markers along the way, the stories and history of the exploits of many of our Founding Fathers really come to life.
The series of events that eventually led to what became our Revolutionary War with Great Britain did not happen overnight, nor was it compact in nature. This hostile environment festered for many a year as England continued to squeeze more and more money (in the form of taxes) and exert more and more control over the Colonies that made up the eastern part of our portion of North America. The infamous and very unpopular, (think Taxation without Representation) Stamp Act was passed in 1765 by Parliament, so the Colonies were already not happy when the Boston Massacre occurred in early 1770. The first shot at Lexington was not fired until five years later in the spring of 1775 and, the War lasted another eight years until Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown in the fall of 1781, which was the beginning of the end as the Treaty of Paris was signed in1783 which finally halted the hostilities between what is now probably the two greatest allies on the planet.
1770 to1783, that’s thirteen years of fighting for the freedom to control our own destinies. Thirteen years, one for each original colony…… maybe that was Destiny.
More likely it was fortitude.
But it all started here in Boston!
Without the Sons of Liberty, a few of which were Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Paul Revere from Boston, and others from most of the other colonies, that spark may have never been ignited. But it was, again, right here in Boston and you can visit and see for yourselves the close proximity of them all just by spending an afternoon walking in their proverbial footsteps here where it all began.
A humbling experience to say the least.