“All those in favor of destroying the King’s tea, say aye!” shouts Samuel Adams—actually, an actor dressed in colonial garb like that worn in revolutionary Boston. “Aye,” chant the visitors as we sit in what looks like church pews in a meeting hall. “All opposed? None,” he replies to the booming foot-stomping from all of us cheering him on. I’m taking part in a thrilling skit protesting England’s tea tax that takes place every day at the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, one of the city’s most recent historical attractions to open along a wharf and, notably, over the same body of water where the actual rebellion took place on December 16, 1773. “We destroy the tea this evening!” continues the actor. “We may all be subject to the law,” he warns us, “so we’ll do our very best to conceal our identities.” We continue our tour through the museum with stops to see holographs of a patriot and Tory debating both sides of the momentous Tea Party Rebellion, and a similar back and forth from video likenesses of England’s King George III and Samuel Adams. We also board one of two accurate replicas of actual 18th century ships raided by the colonial patriots. “We are dedicated to telling the story of the Boston Tea Party in a very engaging and dynamic theatrical experience,” says museum Assistant Creative Manager Josiah George. “The tea was thrown overboard at low tide, probably the worst time to do so. It began to pile up as large mountains of tea alongside the hulls of the ships.” What impresses me the most, however, is the museum’s key exhibit: an actual wooden tea chest thrown off a ship during the rebellion, documented as being passed on through generations of a single family. “It’s the only known tea chest from the event, its story quite remarkable that the artifact has survived 250 years,” explains George. Touring the museum is just one stop brimming with history along coastal southern New England. I’m driving from Boston to Providence, Rhode Island, also making stops at the birth homes of Presidents John Adams and son John Quincy Adams; the Plimoth Patuxet Museums, where the replica Mayflower II berths at Plymouth, Massachusetts; and then Boston to Providence: Following in the Footsteps of Pilgrims, Revolutionaries, and Presidents Story and photos by Richard Varr
on to Providence where I discover that city had its own dramatic pre-American Revolution event that somehow got buried in the history books. In downtown Boston, history is seemingly at every turn. I join a Boston by Foot walking tour visiting some of the 16 historic sites along the 2.5-mile Freedom Trail. We begin at the King’s Chapel, a relatively small church amid towering skyscrapers and home to New England’s first Anglican congregation. “We’re also the first Unitarian church in the United States,” says Noah Good, the church’s history program educator. “We’re one of the most well-preserved interiors in Boston, a lot of it original to our 1754 building.” We pass the site of the Boston Latin Schoolhouse, the colonies’ first public school that opened in 1645, the location now marked with a statue of Benjamin Franklin. Although he lived most of his life in Philadelphia, Franklin was born in Boston and spent his youth here. The Old South Meeting House, the biggest building in the colonial city, was where the raucous meeting of 5,000 colonists took place that spurred on the Boston Tea Party hours later.
Silhouette of George Washington inside the Old South Meeting House
BOSTON TO PROVIDENCE
COAST TO COAST MAGAZINE SUMMER 2025 | 19
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