Boston- 250th Anniverary of Paul Revere's Ride- Friday, April 18, 2025

 

A few highlights-

• Rode train from our hotel in to Boston
• Walked to Boston Commons
• Had a few beers at "Cheers"
• Walked the Freedom Trail
• Had another stop at the Sam Adams brew pub
• Continued on the Freedom Trail
• Late lunch/early dinner at  Bell in Hand, the oldest continually operating tavern in the US
• Passed Paul Revere's house where crowds were starting to gather
• Passed the Old North Church.  Got pictures by Paul Revere's equestrian statue
• Crossed to Charlestown, where we made a detour to Bunker Hill 
• Chilled for a while in Paul Revere Park
• Saw the two lanterns in the steeple of the Old North Church, then saw an amazing drone show as Paul Revere was rowed across the Charles River
• Saw Paul start of on his horse, but the park was crowded and we only got a few glimpses of him from a distance
• Took the train back and got to the hotel a little after 11:00

Added later:

     Last night, we went looking for some beer to have some in the refrigerator later.  In Massachusetts, liquor stores sell beer and there was one nearby, but we knew from last night that it wouldn't open until 10:00.  Scott didn't want to wait that late, so we went looking for a supermarket.  We had to drive over a hill and through what looked like an old quarry to find a Market Basket.  The supermarket portion of it doesn't sell beer, but they are attached to an MB (i.e., "Market Basket") liquor store where we were able to get some supplies for later.  We dropped these off at the hotel and set off for the train station.

     In Waltham, we found the MBTA train and boarded it, expecting to be asked to pay at some point.  We learned that you have to have the app on your phone to pay, and that the phone gets scanned as you get off.  Brian couldn't get the app to work on his phone.  Scott had Julie's phone for the weekend, but Emma had changed the password to add apps and Scott couldn't remember what it was.  This put us into the same situation as Charlie in the famous Irish song about riding the MTA.  He didn't have a nickle to be able to get off the train and was doomed to ride the MTA around the streets of Boston forever-- "the man who never returned."   Well, we eventually got in touch with Julie and Emma and got the app to work.  No telling where we would be if we hadn't had Julie's phone.

      We got off the train at the North Station, which is in the TD Garden, where the Bruins and Celtics play.  We got Dunkin Donuts for breakfast, since that seemed like a very Boston thing to do.   Then we walked towards Boston Commons where the Freedom Trail begins.  It was almost a mile to the Visitor Center there.  Scott got some maps and a booklet.  He thought he was funny when he asked the woman at the Visitors Center counter if there was anything going on that weekend.  She politely laughed and was nice about it.  In addition to the 250th anniversary events, there's a lot of people in town for the Boston Marathon on Monday.  She pointed out that it was also one of the best days to be outside so far this year.  The weather was great and the trees were blooming.    

     Scott knew that the bar from Cheers was not all that far away, and thought it might be fun to stop there for lunch.  On our way, we went by the Massachusetts State House and stopped for pictures at the monument to Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts (featured in the movie Glory).  At Cheers, we went down the famous stairs and had a beer at the bar, but Brian wasn't interested in lunch yet.   When we checked out the gift shop, we learned that there was a second bar upstairs that was supposed to look like the set of the show.  It did look like it, sorta, but it was not an exact recreation.  We were sitting in the Norm and Cliff seats anyway, and figured we needed to have another beer.  (Sam Adams beers, naturally.)

     We made our way back to the Freedom Trail and the Scott got a sausage from a street vendor to have something in his stomach.  We followed the red bricks of the trail to the sites it visits.  We lingered a while at the Granary Burial Ground, where the graves of Paul Revere, Sam Adams, and others are.  We continued past the site of the Boston Massacre to Fanueil Hall.  Next to this famous historical market place and meeting house, stands a statue of Sam Adams, and near that is a new Sam Adams Taproom.  So yes, we stopped for a beer.  By this point, Scott was only having a 5.5 oz. beer but figured he should at least have that small one.   Sam Adams was the fieriest of all the Patriot leaders and a brewer by trade.  The current brewing company named in his honor, but was not actually connected to him any other way.  We looked around quickly in the shops and Fanueil Hall and the adjacent Quincy Market, but we didn't stay too long here.  Scott figured he would have time to explore more when he's here again in two weeks with the 8th graders. 

     It was mid-afternoon, and we still hadn't had a real lunch, so we stopped at the Bell in Hand Tavern, which is on the Freedom Trail and which claims to be the oldest continually operating tavern in America.  Like many of the sites along the Freedom Trail, Scott remembered this place from when he and Julie and little Anna visited here back on Easter Break, 2002.  Today, Scott got a burger, but Brian got a bowl of clam chowder because it's New England. 

    We were unsure about where we would want to be for the Paul Revere anniversary events this evening, bu the NPS ranger at Faneuil Hall helped us decide that we would focus on the end of the evening's events.  Paul Revere was scheduled to leave his house at 8:00.  There was a play and presentation by the Old North Church.  He was then supposed to be rowed across the Charles River to Charlestown.  That's where he actually got the horse and where he would be getting on the horse tonight.  We believed that trying to follow the whole journey from the house to the horse would be difficult at best, and likely impossible given the crowds of people that would be there.  So we decided to try to find a place to watch him cross the river and then watch him ride off at the end. 

     We made our way through the North End of Boston, which is a very Italian neighborhood.  We not only saw a lot of Italian restaurants, but we also heard some chefs talking to each other in Italian by a little sky blue Fiat.  We accidentally left the Freedom Trail, but backtracked and found our way to the Paul Revere house.  It is the oldest house that is still standing in Boston.  There was a crowd gathering there already and a TV station had a crew set up to capture his departure.  We took some pictures and continued to the nearby Old North Church.  We had to get pictures by the equestrian statue of Paul and went to the far side of the church.  We saw a lot of things being set up for the evenings commemorations, but we thought we would beat the crowds and went over the Charles River at North Washington Street to Charlestown.

    The 250th Anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill is coming in June of this year, and while Scott would love to be back for that too, he figured that's probably not going to happen.   We had some time before things were going to happen tonight, though, and the Freedom Trail ends at the Bunker Hill monument, so we pushed to get to there.  We climbed the hill (actually Breed's Hill), to the large obelisk and took more pictures there.  We then worked our way back down to where naval yards where the U.S.S. Constitution sits.  The ship was closing as we arrived, but we were able to peek and the gift shop there.

     It was still two hours before things were going to begin, and we weren't 100% sure where the Paul's crossing was supposed to take place.  We went to the park called Paul Revere Park, but after we arrived it was clear that it wasn't going to be there.  We sat and rested a while since it had been a lot of walking already.  The air was getting cooler and the wind was making it downright chilly.  We both wished we had another layer on at that point.

     Eventually, we headed back towards the naval yards.  The blue lights from the police boats in the Charles River showed us where they had created a secure area for the crossing. We waited patiently for the lanterns to go up in the Old North Church with the code to signal how the British soldiers were leaving Boston- one lantern if by land, two if by sea.  The signal was two.  They were leaving by boats, across the Charles River.  The lanterns were lit at about 8:15.  Scott thought it was odd that they were both in the same window.  It made it a little hard to see if it was one or two.

     Not long after the lanterns, the drone show started ended up being a highlight of the evening.  Brian had no idea what to expect, but Scott knew we wouldn't want to miss it.  He and Julie have seen videos of drone shows at Disney parks, but we hadn't seen one in person.  There were hundreds of drones with bright lights that could change color on each one.  We could see them take off from a tennis court on the Boston side of the river.  They then made amazing animated pictures in the air above the river.  We weren't in the official viewing area so we couldn't quite hear the narration, but really, it wasn't needed.  The pictures were so well done that the story they were telling was obvious.  Among the images was the modern skyline of Boston, a giant crate of tea floating in the harbor, Paul Revere's house, two giant lanterns, an enormous figure of Paul Revere making giant strides, maps of Massachusetts and the United States, and the logo for Boston 250 events.  Of course, there was a moving image of Paul on the horse, and Brian noted that as the horse was galloping, the "houses" in the background were getting smaller as they receded into the distance.   While we were watching the drone show, we could tell Paul was crossing the river because we could hear the cheers from the opposite shore.  As the drones made the image of Paul in the rowboat, the reenactors' rowboat was right in front of us.   

    When the drone show had ended we followed the quickly moving crowd to City Point Park where Paul was to get his horse.  The park isn't very big, but no one seemed to know exactly where the events were going to take place.  We ended up being in back of the crowd, but we were able to see him through the trees and a narrator gave a lot of information about him and the other riders that were spreading the news of the soldiers to the Massachusetts countryside that night.  He was the most famous of the riders, almost entirely because of the Longfellow poem about him.  

    Once Paul was on his way, we left too.  Brian hadn't picked up breakfast items for tomorrow, so we picked up some at a nearby Shell station and then recrossed the Charles River on the bridge and walked back to the train station to make our way back to the hotel.  In all, Google Earth tells was we walked at least seven miles today.  We made it back to the hotel by 11:00 PM and had a chance to get a little bit of sleep.  Our plan is to get up at 3:00 to get to Lexington.