Learning American History in Boston

When we toured Boston last week I learned some things about the history of our nation that I should have learned in school, had I been paying attention. Fortunately, Fleda and I had our granddaughter Madison with us as we walked the “Freedom Trail”. Madison has been paying attention to her history lessons. In addition, we had our daughter-in-law Tamara leading the way to some good restaurants when she was finished with the training she was taking at Lesley University. The lobster roll at the Union Oyster House was good but even better was the pasta we ate at Mother Anna’s in “The North End,” Boston’s neighborhood of more than 90 Italian restaurants.

On the Freedom Trail we saw Paul Revere’s House, the Old North Church, Park Street Church, and the USS Constitution. The enduring fame of the Old North Church “began on the evening of April 18, 1775, when the church sexton climbed the steeple and held high two lanterns as a signal from Paul Revere that the British were marching to Lexington and Concord by sea and not by land. This fateful event ignited the American Revolution.”

Park Street Church, right across the street from the Boston Common, is known as the Evangelical Church of "firsts.” It is the location of the first Sunday school in 1818 and the first prison ministry in 1824. On July 4, 1829, William Lloyd Garrison gave his first public anti-slavery speech there. "My Country 'Tis of Thee,” was sung for the first time by the church children's choir on July 4, 1831, thanks to the leadership of Lowell Mason, Park Street’s Minister of Music. Among Mason’s more popular hymns were “Joy to the World”, “Nearer my God to Thee”, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”, and “My Faith Looks Up to Thee”.