Faneuil Hall today, east side
|Architect||John Smibert; Charles Bulfinch|
|NRHP reference #||66000368|
|Added to NRHP||October 15, 1966|
|Designated NHL||October 9, 1960|
Faneuil Hall (// or //; previously //) is a marketplace and meeting hall located near the waterfront and today's Government Center, in Boston, Massachusetts. Opened in 1743, it was the site of several speeches by Samuel Adams, James Otis, and others encouraging independence from Great Britain. It is now part of Boston National Historical Park and a well-known stop on the Freedom Trail. It is sometimes referred to as "the Cradle of Liberty".
In 2008, Faneuil Hall was rated number 4 in America's 25 Most Visited Tourist Sites by Forbes Traveler.
After the project of erecting a public market house in Boston had been discussed for some years, slave merchant Peter Faneuil offered, at a public meeting in 1740, to build a suitable edifice at his own cost as a gift to the town. There was a strong opposition to market houses, and although a vote of thanks was passed unanimously, his offer was accepted by a majority of only seven. Funded in part by profits from slave trading, the building was begun in Dock Square in September of the same year. It was built by artist John Smibert in 1740–1742 in the style of an English country market, with an open ground floor serving as the market house, and an assembly room above. According to Sean Hennessey, a National Park Service spokesman, some of Boston's early slave auctions took place near Faneuil Hall.
In 1761, the hall was destroyed by fire, with nothing but the brick walls remaining. It was rebuilt by the town in 1762. In 1775, during the British occupation of Boston, it was used for a theatre.
In 1806, the hall was greatly expanded by Charles Bulfinch, doubling its height and width and adding a third floor. Four new bays were added, to make seven in all; the open arcades were enclosed, and the cupola was moved to the opposite end of the building. Bulfinch applied Doric brick pilasters to the lower two floors, with Ionic pilasters on the third floor. This renovation added galleries around the assembly hall and increased its height. Neighboring Quincy Market was constructed in 1824–1826. Faneuil Hall was entirely rebuilt of noncombustible materials in 1898–1899.
20th and 21st centuries
On October 9, 1960, the building was designated a National Historic Landmark and added to the National Register of Historic Places a number of years later. The ground floor and basement were altered in 1979. The Hall was restored again in 1992, and in 1994 the building was designated a local Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission.
The headquarters of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts is located on the fourth floor and includes an armory, library, offices, quartermaster department, commissary, and a military museum with free admission.
Faneuil Hall Marketplace
Faneuil Hall is one of four historic buildings in a festival marketplace, Faneuil Hall Marketplace, which includes three historic granite buildings called North Market, Quincy Market, and South Market adjacent to the east of Faneuil Hall, and which operates as an indoor/outdoor mall and food eatery. It was designed by Benjamin Thompson and Associates and managed by Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp.; its success in the late 1970s led to the emergence of similar marketplaces in other U.S. cities.
According to Ashkenazy, Faneuil Hall Marketplace had 18 million visitors in 2016.
On Friday in early August 1890, one of the first black Republican legislators of Boston, Julius Caesar Chappelle, made a speech "At the Cradle of Liberty" in support of the Federal Elections bill that would help give Black people the right to vote. Chappelle was a Boston legislator from 1883–1886. The Faneuil Hall event was covered by the media in the United States, and the speech by Chappelle appeared in an August 9, 1890, article, "At the Cradle of Liberty, Enthusiastic Endorsement of the Elections Bill, Faneuil Hall again Filled with Liberty Loving Bostonians to Urge a Free Ballot and Fare Count..." on the front page of The New York Age newspaper on Saturday, August 9, 1890.
On November 7, 1979, Faneuil Hall was the site of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's speech declaring his candidacy for president. On November 3, 2004, Faneuil Hall was the site of Senator John Kerry's concession speech in the 2004 presidential election.
The Headquarters of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts has been in Faneuil Hall since 1746, currently on the 4th floor.
It is also still used for political debates between Massachusetts candidates as well as political shows, such as The O'Reilly Factor.
Faneuil is a French name, and is anglicized as // or //. In Colonial times, it may have been pronounced as in funnel. Peter Faneuil's gravestone is marked "P. Funel." However, the inscription was added long after his burial; the stone originally displayed only the Faneuil family crest, not his surname. In his 1825 novel Lionel Lincoln, James Fenimore Cooper used eye dialect for Bostonian characters to indicate that they pronounced it Funnel Hall.
Boston area locals often use the term Faneuil to refer to the entire surrounding neighborhood, particularly as a landmark for its vibrant nightlife.
In August 2017, amid heightened media coverage of the removal of Confederate monuments and memorials, the activist group New Democracy Coalition proposed that Faneuil Hall's name be changed because of Peter Faneuil's participation in the slave trade. In response to the proposal, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh stated: "We are not going the change the name of Faneuil Hall".
The bell was repaired in 2007 by spraying the frozen clapper with WD-40 over the course of a week and attaching a rope. Prior to this repair, the last known ringing of the bell with its clapper was at the end of World War II, in 1945, though it had since been rung several times by striking with a mallet.
Grasshopper weather vane
The gilded grasshopper weather vane on top of the building was created by Deacon Shem Drowne in 1742. Gilded with a gold leaf, the copper weather vane weighs 80 pounds (36 kg) and is 4 feet (1.2 m) long. The weather vane is believed to be modeled after the grasshopper weather vane on the London Royal Exchange, based upon the family crest of Thomas Gresham.
Public art and landscape artwork
The area between the eastern end of Faneuil Hall and Congress Street is part of Boston National Historical Park. In this landscape is a 19th-century sculpture of Samuel Adams created by sculptor Anne Whitney. The granite plaza surface is marked for 850 feet (260 m) with the approximate location of the early Colonial shoreline c. 1630. The street layout and building plot plan designations from an 1820 map are shown by etched dashed lines and changes from pink granite to grey granite paving slabs. The shoreline marking artwork entitled, A Once and Future Shoreline, is made with etched silhouettes of seaweed, sea grass, fish, shells and other materials found along a high tide line.
Art within Faneuil Hall includes many paintings and sculpture busts of Revolutionary War activists, pre Civil War abolitionists, and political leaders.
Timeline of events
- 1761 – Hall burned down
- 1762 – Hall rebuilt
- 1767 – October 28: Petition to boycott imported goods signed.
- 1768 – Faneuil Hall is briefly used to quarter the newly arrived 14th Regiment during the occupation of Boston.
- 1773 – December 3: Meeting about tea lately arrived on the ship Eleanor; Capt. James Bruce, Samuel Adams, Jonathan Williams, and others present
- 1806 – Building remodelled and expanded by Charles Bulfinch
- August 2, 1826 – Daniel Webster eulogizes John Adams and Thomas Jefferson
- July 11, 1831 – Timothy Fuller speaks "at the request of the Suffolk Anti-Masonic Committee"
- September 6, 1834 – Edward Everett eulogizes Lafayette
- 1839 – Peleg Sprague stumps for candidate William Henry Harrison
- July 4, 1843 – Charles Francis Adams Sr. speaks
- April 15, 1848 – Edward Everett eulogizes John Quincy Adams
- May 26, 1854 – After arrest of Anthony Burns, public meeting "to secure justice for a man claimed as a slave by a Virginia kidnapper, and imprisoned in Boston Court House, in defiance of the laws of Massachusetts."
- April 18, 1863 – Andrew Jackson Hamilton "of Texas" speaks "at the war meeting"
- January 9, 1865 – Edward Everett speaks on "the relief of the suffering people of Savannah"
- June 7, 1876 – Meeting "in favor of public parks;" Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. and others speak
- August 1, 1878 – "Indignation meeting ... to protest against the injury done to the freedom of the press by the conviction and imprisonment of Ezra H. Heywood"
- October 29, 1887 – Eben Norton Horsford speaks on occasion of the unveiling of Anne Whitney's Leif Ericson statue (installed on Commonwealth Ave.)
- August 1890 – Julius Caesar Chappelle, Republican legislator of Boston, MA (1883–1886), one of the first black legislators in the United States, makes a speech (endorsing the Federal Elections bill that would help give blacks the right to vote) that was printed in The New York Age newspaper's front-page article, "At the Cradle of Liberty" on August 9, 1890.
- June 15, 1898 – James E. McCormick published a letter in the Boston Evening Transcript on June 2 which led to a June 15 meeting at Faneuil Hall, thus the founding of the American Anti-Imperialist League in opposition to the Spanish–American War as well the subsequent Filipino-American War. To note one of the league's more familiar names, Mark Twain served as vice-president from 1901 to his passing in 1910.
- May 1909 – 32nd Grand Division (Order of Railroad Conductors)ORC Convention
- 1974 – Weathervane stolen, then returned
- 1992 – Building restored
- 2012 – Lower Level and First Level completely renovated by Eastern General Contractors, Inc. of Springfield, MA
View of Faneuil Hall from the harbor; by Abel Bowen, 1838
Fourth of July festivities at Faneuil Hall; Gleason's Pictorial, 1853
Exhibition of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, 19th century
Faneuil Hall and Congress St., 1973
- Dock Square (Boston, Massachusetts)
- South Street Seaport
- Boston Landmarks Commission
- List of National Historic Landmarks in Boston
- National Register of Historic Places listings in northern Boston, Massachusetts
- "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2007-01-23.
- "Faneuil Hall Boston, The Cradle Of Liberty". www.celebrateboston.com. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
- Baedeker, Rob (2008-05-05). "America's 25 Most Visited Tourist Sites". Forbes Traveler. Archived from the original on 2009-08-31. Retrieved 2008-05-14.
- "Was Faneuil Hall Built with Slave Money?". 13 March 2012. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
- One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
- "Unearthing Boston?s Past – The Daily Free Press". dailyfreepress.com. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
- Logan, Tim (2017-06-08). "Faneuil Hall Marketplace aims to draw more locals". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 2017-06-09.
- "At the Cradle of Liberty," The New York Age, front page, Saturday August 9th, 1890.
- "PBS Carter Administration Timelilne". Retrieved 30 May 2018.
- Belluck, Pam; Zezima, Katie (April 13, 2006). "Massachusetts Legislation on Insurance Becomes Law". The New York Times.
- "President Obama heading to Boston on Wednesday for health care speech - The Boston Globe". Retrieved 30 May 2018.
- "Thousands say goodbye to Menino - The Boston Globe". Retrieved 30 May 2018.
- That is, rhyming with panel or Daniel.
- Cooper, James Fenimore; Cooper, James Fenimore. "Lionel Lincoln : or, The leaguer of Boston". New York : Lovell, Coryell. Retrieved 30 May 2018 – via Internet Archive.
- Zander, Amy (16 August 2016). "Faneuil Hall: Everything you need to know". Maverick Empire. Retrieved 2 August 2018.
- Gere, Michelle (17 August 2017). "Group calls for Faneuil Hall to be renamed". Retrieved 30 May 2018.
- "Marty Walsh has a confession to make". bostonglobe.com. Retrieved August 1, 2018.
- Viser, Matt (2007-05-04). "It tolls for the city". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 2007-05-05.
- "Grasshopper Weather Vane on Faneuil Hall Is Stolen". New York Times. January 6, 1974. p. 54.
- "Faneuil Hall Grasshopper". Celebrate Boston. Retrieved 2008-12-27.
- Unsworth, Tania (February 26, 1996). "Playing Tourist At Home". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-12-27.
- "Samuel Adams Statue at Faneuil Hall Boston". www.celebrateboston.com. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
- "CultureNOW - A Once and Future Shoreline (orignal shoreline c. 1630): Ross Miller, Boston Art Commission and Boston Landmarks Commission". culturenow.org. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
- "Art in Faneuil Hall, Boston National Historical Park Brochure" (PDF). Retrieved 30 May 2018.
- "Houghton Library Blog". Harvard University. 11 July 2013.
- Snow. History of Boston. 1828; p.293-294
- Daniel Webster. A discourse in commemoration of the lives and services of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, delivered in Faneuil Hall, Boston, August 2, 1826. Boston: Cummings, Hilliard, and Company, 1826
- Timothy Fuller. An oration, delivered at Faneuil Hall, Boston, July 11, 1831: at the request of the Suffolk Anti-Masonic Committee. 1831
- Edward Everett. Eulogy on Lafayette: delivered in Faneuil hall, at the request of the young men of Boston, September 6, 1834. Boston: N. Hale, 1834
- The freedom speech of Wendell Phillips: Faneuil Hall, December 8, 1837, with descriptive letters from eye witnesses. Boston: Wendell Phillips Hall Association, 1890
- First Exhibition and Fair of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association. 1837
- Remarks of the Hon. Peleg Sprague at Faneuil Hall: before the citizens of Boston and its vicinity, upon the character and services of Gen. William Henry Harrison, of Ohio, the Whig candidate for the presidency of the United States. Boston: Whig Republican Assoc., 1839
- Charles Francis Adams. An oration, delivered before the City Council and citizens of Boston, in Faneuil Hall, on the sixty-seventh anniversary of the Declaration of Independence: July 4th, 1843. Boston: J. H. Eastburn, City printer, 1843
- Edward Everett. A eulogy on the life and character of John Quincy Adams: delivered at the request of the legislature of Massachusetts, in Faneuil hall, April 15, 1848. Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, state printers, 1848
- Boston slave riot, and trial of Anthony Burns: Containing the report of the Faneuil Hall meeting, the murder of Batchelder, Theodore Parker's Lesson for the day, speeches of counsel on both sides, corrected by themselves, a verbatim report of Judge Loring's decision, and detailed account of the embarkation. Boston: Fetridge and Co., 1854
- Speech of Gen. A. J. Hamilton, of Texas, at the war meeting at Faneuil hall, Saturday evening, April 18, 1863. Boston: Press of T. R. Marvin & son, 1863
- Savannah and Boston: account of the supplies sent to Savannah ; with the Last appeal of Edward Everett in Faneuil Hall ; The letter to the mayor of Savannah ; and, The proceedings of the citizens, and letter of the mayor of Savannah. Boston: J. Wilson, 1865
- Parks for the people: Proceedings of a public meeting held at Faneuil hall, June 7, 1876. Boston: Franklin press: Rand, Avery, & co., 1876
- Proceedings of the indignation meeting held in Faneuil Hall, Thursday evening, August 1, 1878: to protest against the injury done to the freedom of the press by the conviction and imprisonment of Ezra H. Heywood. B.R. Tucker, 1878
- Eben Norton Horsford. Discovery of America by Northmen: address at the unveiling of the statue of Leif Eriksen, delivered in Faneuil Hall, Oct. 29, 1887. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1888
- "At the Cradle of Liberty," The New York Age, front page, Saturday, August 9, 1890.
- Socialism: a speech delivered in Faneuil hall, February 7th, 1903, by Frederic J. Stimson ... in joint debate with James F. Carey. Boston: The Old Corner Book Store, Inc., 1903
- Mass meetings of protest against the suppression of truth about the Philippines, Faneuil hall, Thursday, March 19, 1903.
- "Grasshopper Weather Vane on Faneuil Hall Is Stolen". New York Times. January 6, 1974. p. 54.
- Abram English Brown (1901) Faneuil hall and Faneuil Hall Market: or, Peter Faneuil and His Gift. Boston: Lee and Shepard.
- Burgon, John William (1839) Life and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham. London: Robert Jennings
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to Faneuil Hall.|
- Faneuil Hall Marketplace
- Faneuil Hall (City of Boston)
- Faneuil Hall (National Park Service)
- (Official website of the Freedom Trail)
- Suffolk County listings (National Register of Historic Places)
- Boston Classical Orchestra
- Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress. Includes 1937 photos.
- SAH Archipedia Building Entry
- Faneuil Hall Study Report
Site of the Boston Massacre
| Locations along Boston's Freedom Trail
Paul Revere House