Long Wharf

Long Wharf has stretched into the Atlantic from Boston for 300 years, serving as the world’s great doorway to the city. It was the longest wharf in Boston, extending 1,586 feet into the deep water of the harbor allowing up to 50 ships to dock at one time. Located at the base of today’s State Street (which was originally King Street) It ends at the same spot it originally lay however it used to be 5 football fields long. It would have been a place of great bustle—the loading and unloading of cargo by longshoremen, transporting of such cargo to the busy warehouses and shops that lined the wharf, and then the purchase of such goods by local people. Where Broad St intersects is where the waterline used to be. Long Wharf was the nucleus of Boston’s maritime trade. By the end of the 1700s, it reigned pre-eminent amongst Boston's 80 wharves, handling both international and coastal trade. Regaining its prominence as a commercial center, Long Wharf remains one of the city's most well-known wharves today.

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Acting upon the suggestion of Henry Deering in 1707, the Selectmen of Boston granted permission to a private group of men (headed by Capt. Oliver Noyes) for the construction of a wharf at the base of King Street. Constructed around 1710-1721, the new wharf extended half a mile into the harbor and became known as "Long Wharf." Early maps show that it was by far the most ambitious undertaking on Boston's waterfront. An immediate success, Long Wharf's site at the base of King Street allowed direct access to the heart of the town—the intersection of King and Cornhill Streets (now State and Washington Streets). Its extreme length of 1,586 feet allowed up to 50 vessels to dock and unload directly into warehouses without the use of lighters or boats. With its site and length, the wharf soon became central to the commercial trade of Boston.

Supported by powerful New England merchant families, commercial trade in Boston grew substantially as the town became integrated into the Atlantic trading empire. Due to its location, Boston served as an ideal location as a port of call for ships traveling across the Atlantic ocean. Boston, and Long Wharf in particular, became immersed in the Mid-Atlantic slave trade and what is known as the Middle Passage. Newspaper advertisements in the 1700s document that some ships docked at Long Wharf held enslaved Africans; merchants and captains also sold them alongside their other imports. Installed in 2020, a marker recognizes this history at the end of Long Wharf today.

In 1758, victors from the pivotal Battle of Louisbourg during the Seven Years' War landed here to gun salutes and cheering citizens. The arrival of British troops via Long Wharf just over a decade later received a different response, as they came to enforce the King's rights in 1770 (ultimately ending in the Boston Massacre). As part of the Intolerable Acts, British Parliament shut down the port of Boston in 1774, therefore closing Long Wharf stores and docks. According to Frothingham's History of the Siege of Boston, some of the British forces at Bunker Hill arrived from Long Wharf.4 Wounded from both sides of the Battle of Bunker Hill were brought back across the harbor to Long Wharf in June of 1775. At the end of the Siege of Boston, the British evacuated Boston from Long Wharf in March 1776. In July 1776, the ship that brought word of the Declaration of Independence from Philadelphia landed at Long Wharf. John Adams sailed from it to secure European financial and military support for the Revolutionary War. During this time, privateers and blockade runners sailed from Long Wharf and military stores were kept in its warehouses. Decades later, during the War of 1812, USS Constitution ("Old Ironsides") docked at Long Wharf.

-Source Links-

https://www.nps.gov/places/long-wharf-boston.htm