Freedom Trail by David Bouchier It must have been a dozen years ago when I walked the Freedom Trail in Boston for the first time. In case you?ve never enjoyed this historical treat the Freedom Trail, marked out in red brick through downtown, leads the visitor to some of the key monuments of the American Revolution of 1776. The trail was created in 1958, so this is its fiftieth anniversary year Naturally I have mixed feelings about the revolution, but I like the idea of a Freedom Trail. It seems to promise infinite possibilities, like the Utopia Parkway on Long Island or the Road to Arcadia in Rhode Island. Will freedom really be at the end of the trail? If so, what will it be like? Freedom is one of the great philosophical puzzles. Plato was defeated by it; the German philosopher Hegel gave it as his opinion that freedom lies in the cheerful acceptance of slavery, but that can't be right. Everybody loves freedom, but nobody knows what it really means. The Freedom Trail begins on Boston Common, from where you can see the golden dome of the state capitol, then it leads up the hill to the Old Granary burial ground where lie the victims of the Boston massacre as well as other revolutionary heroes like Samuel Adams and Paul Revere ? ?But not under their original stones,? says the guide book mysteriously. We leave the dead, resting uneasily under the wrong headstones, and continue to The King's Chapel: "A symbol of what the Puritans fled" says the guidebook. And you can see why. The architecture is awful. Then comes the Old South Meeting House, the scene of many dramatic meetings in the revolutionary days - a much finer piece of architecture, nicely framed by a giant bank building and a bagel shop. The first really vivid historical lesson comes at the Old State House, seat of British government from 1713-1776. It's stunning to see so graphically how small governments were in those days. The state house is scarcely bigger than a summer house in the Hamptons, yet all thirteen colonies were ruled from there. Our local town hall on Long Island is a hundred times larger, and rules nothing at all except garbage collection and building permits. There have been changes since I was last on the Freedom Trail. The Boston Tea Party Ship has vanished, perhaps the victim of pressure from the Starbucks Corporation. But the historic narrative is still mainly about freedom from oppressive taxes, which wonderfully ironic when you stop to think about it. The oppressed colonists paid about 12% of their income in taxes. Just make the comparison next April 15th. About half way along the trail brings the sweating pilgrim to Faneuil Hall. The locals insist on calling it "Fannel," but clearly it's Faneuil Hall because it was built by the Huguenot Peter Faneuil in 1740. In the 1960s this area was developed into a kind of indoor/outdoor mall, with hundreds of shops and restaurants in the old warehouses. It?s commonly called Quincy Market because nobody can pronounce Faneuil. I bet that a lot of people give up on the Freedom Trail right there, missing Paul Revere's House, the USS Constitution, and the Bunker Hill Monument. They stop right there in the market, as I did, forget about history, eat a chili dog, watch the street entertainers, and browse the rich cornucopia of stalls and shops. After all, when you come right down to it, that?s freedom.

Freedom Trail by David Bouchier It must have been a dozen years ago when I walked the Freedom Trail in Boston for the first time. In case you?ve never enjoyed this historical treat the Freedom Trail, marked out in red brick through downtown, leads the visitor to some of the key monuments of the American Revolution of 1776. The trail was created in 1958, so this is its fiftieth anniversary year Naturally I have mixed feelings about the revolution, but I like the idea of a Freedom Trail. It seems to promise infinite possibilities, like the Utopia Parkway on Long Island or the Road to Arcadia in Rhode Island. Will freedom really be at the end of the trail? If so, what will it be like? Freedom is one of the great philosophical puzzles. Plato was defeated by it; the German philosopher Hegel gave it as his opinion that freedom lies in the cheerful acceptance of slavery, but that can't be right. Everybody loves freedom, but nobody knows what it really means. The Freedom Trail begins on Boston Common, from where you can see the golden dome of the state capitol, then it leads up the hill to the Old Granary burial ground where lie the victims of the Boston massacre as well as other revolutionary heroes like Samuel Adams and Paul Revere ? ?But not under their original stones,? says the guide book mysteriously. We leave the dead, resting uneasily under the wrong headstones, and continue to The King's Chapel: "A symbol of what the Puritans fled" says the guidebook. And you can see why. The architecture is awful. Then comes the Old South Meeting House, the scene of many dramatic meetings in the revolutionary days - a much finer piece of architecture, nicely framed by a giant bank building and a bagel shop. The first really vivid historical lesson comes at the Old State House, seat of British government from 1713-1776. It's stunning to see so graphically how small governments were in those days. The state house is scarcely bigger than a summer house in the Hamptons, yet all thirteen colonies were ruled from there. Our local town hall on Long Island is a hundred times larger, and rules nothing at all except garbage collection and building permits. There have been changes since I was last on the Freedom Trail. The Boston Tea Party Ship has vanished, perhaps the victim of pressure from the Starbucks Corporation. But the historic narrative is still mainly about freedom from oppressive taxes, which wonderfully ironic when you stop to think about it. The oppressed colonists paid about 12% of their income in taxes. Just make the comparison next April 15th. About half way along the trail brings the sweating pilgrim to Faneuil Hall. The locals insist on calling it "Fannel," but clearly it's Faneuil Hall because it was built by the Huguenot Peter Faneuil in 1740. In the 1960s this area was developed into a kind of indoor/outdoor mall, with hundreds of shops and restaurants in the old warehouses. It?s commonly called Quincy Market because nobody can pronounce Faneuil. I bet that a lot of people give up on the Freedom Trail right there, missing Paul Revere's House, the USS Constitution, and the Bunker Hill Monument. They stop right there in the market, as I did, forget about history, eat a chili dog, watch the street entertainers, and browse the rich cornucopia of stalls and shops. After all, when you come right down to it, that?s freedom.