Faneuil Hall

6 Faneuil Hall Market Pl

Nicknamed “the Cradle of Liberty” Faneuil Hall (1742). This building was given to the city of Boston by rich merchant Peter Faneuil. The bottom floor was a market and top floor a town hall, famous for the meetings and protests that led to the American Revolution, including the funeral of the victims of the Boston massacre. Samuel Adams led protests against the tea act from here.

While the first floor of Faneuil Hall has served as a market and the second floor served as the government hall, the top floor served as an armory for the town's protection. Boston had several militia companies, and many began storing their equipment in the attic of Faneuil Hall in the 1740s. When the hall was expanded in 1806, offices and a large assembly room on the top floor were specifically designed to permit the militia companies to continue to organize, meet, and drill. Of these companies which trained and met in Faneuil Hall for generations, the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company is the oldest and the only unit who still calls the hall home. Today, the Ancients maintain an armory and museum on the top floor.

In the 1800s, the Hall's memory as the "Cradle of Liberty" of the Revolution drew political and social activists both locally and nationally to continue what the founding generation started. The original Great Hall is in this building. Abolitionists, suffragists, labor unionists—and their respective opposition movements—all held protests, conventions, banquets, and orations in the Great Hall continuously in the 1800s. Other meetings of a wide variety continued throughout this period. Organized labor unions, immigrant groups, and other political organizations such as the Anti-Imperialist League relied on the Hall to continue the ongoing American Revolution into its second century. To this day the Hall remains a continuously used meeting place for political and civic events: a third century of the American Revolution and beyond. In 1824 it expanded to include Faneuil Hall Marketplace which comprises of Quincy Market, North Market and South Market.

-Source Links-

https://explorebostonhistory.org/cms/items/show/276

https://www.nps.gov/bost/learn/historyculture/fh.htm

https://faneuilhallmarketplace.com/about/history-of-faneuil-hall