Boston Scavenger Hunt!

Today (and mainly tonight) I made my way around Boston, completing the scavenger hunt. I worked alone but had the photographic help of a friend outside of the class, who I think learned a lot about Boston and our class in the process! Under the cut here are all of the hints I had to complete, accompanied with pictures and brief descriptions of the sites and their historical importance!

He thought he could sail from Spain to China, got as far as the Caribbean. But here is his statue in Boston.

Here is the statue of Christopher Columbus at the Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park off of Atlantic Ave. The park was founded in 1974 and the statue was erected in 1979 by local residents and businesses.  The statue has proven somewhat controversial due to the man it depicts and has been vandalized a few times fairly recently. Despite the fact he never even realized he’d “discovered” a new world, he is nevertheless venerated in America through statues such as this one.

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The man who lived in this house built the first copper-rolling mill in the United States. He copper lined the hull of the USS CONSTITUTION and the dome of the State House.

Paul Revere is the man who built the first copper-rolling mill in the United States–the Revere Copper Company was established by Revere in 1801 in Canton, MA. Above is his house in the North End of Boston. The house was built in 1680, making it the oldest house in downtown Boston. Revere owned the house from 1770 to 1800, and it is now operated as a small nonprofit museum.

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Franklin worked with Thomas Hutchinson on a plan of union in 1754–eleven years later, a Boston mob attacked Hutchinson’s house on this site.

Here is a plaque commemorating the site of Hutchinson’s house which was mobbed by a group of patriot Bostonians protesting the Stamp Act and Hutchinson’s loyalist defense of Britain. The house, built “around 1687”, is no longer standing and this plaque serves to mark its original location.

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There has been a church on this site since Increase Mather preached here; his son Cotton succeeded him, and later this was the Seaman’s Bethel of Father Taylor, the model for Father Mapple in “Moby Dick”.

Pictured above is the North Church, or the “Second Church” in Boston, located in the North End. While the congregation has occupied multiple locations, this building is the oldest of the Second Church’s structures, having been built in 1649 (with a new building replacing the old one in 1677). As detailed on the plaque shown in the first picture, the church became a “Seaman’s Bethel” when Father Taylor resided as the minister. Taylor would later go on to influence Herman Melville’s depiction of Father Mapple in Moby Dick. In the 20th century, the church was bought by Italian immigrants who renamed it the Sacred Heart Italian Church.

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This sculpture won Cyrus Dallin the competition in 1885–but another artist, a sore loser, said it was “unrealistic.” The controversy kept it from being cast until 1940!

Shown above is the famous statue of Paul Revere, located by the Old North Church in the North End. The statue was constructed by Cyrus Dallin, who won a competition for it, but it wasn’t cast in this location until 1940 due to his competitor’s efforts to disparage the statue.

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Franklin had to fly a kite because Philadelphia did not have a steeple as tall as this church’s, which cast a shadow on his sister’s house.

Pictured above are different views of the Old North Church in the North End of Boston. You may see the high steeple in the picture above, of the statue of Paul Revere. According to CityofBoston.gov, “The steeple is 191 feet tall, making it the tallest steeple in Boston.” While I could not find out exactly where Franklin’s sister’s house was, I did uncover the fact that her house was demolished in order to build a monument to Paul Revere–as such, it seems the Old North Church must be the answer to this clue!

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Cotton Mather is buried here–can you find his grave?

Cotton Mather’s grave is located in the Copps Burial Ground in the North End. Cotton’s father, Increase Mather, is also buried here, as are several other members of the Mather family.

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Where can you find the history of the Battery Wharf? Sit on the piling and learn its story.

Located at the Battery Wharf is the Boston Maritime museum, which discusses and presents the history of the wharf from colonial times to present. Unfortunately, I arrived at the museum too late to be able to sit on the piling, so I wasn’t able to learn its story, but you can see it in the above right picture. If anyone else knows the story of the piling, please comment!

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Take a picture of a Fletcher-class destroyer, and the oldest commissioned warship still afloat, from the site of the 1919 molasses flood. 

Above is a fletcher-class destroyer located at Charlestown Navy Yard, the USS Cassin Young. When I was at the Navy Yard I met a couple of employees who work there, and I was told by them that the Cassin Young is so-named for an American war hero during the battle of Pearl Harbor during World War II, who managed to survive despite his ship being destroyed and him being thrown into the water. He managed to swim back to safety and continue fighting, and ultimately this destroyer was named in his honor. He also won the Medal of Honor for his heroism, and he was later killed in action in 1942 in Guadalcanal.

This ship is the USS Constitution, the oldest warship still afloat. It is commonly referred to as “Old Ironsides”. The ship was originally constructed due to Barbary pirates attacking American merchant ships, which resulted in the Naval Act of 1794 that allowed for the commission of 6 new warships, of which the Constitution was one. The USS Constitution has a long history, having been involved in the Quasi-War, the First Barbary Wars, the War of 1812, and many other famous battles. In 1900, the ship was authorized for restoration by Congress, and in 1934 it returned to Boston, after which time it has undergone multiple restorations. It is now docked at the Charlestown Navy Yard and is open for public viewing thanks to the USS Consitution Museum.

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Like landing on Free Parking–eleven guys took $2,775,395.12 out of this place in January 1950. (They went to jail!)

In January of 1950, the Great Brinks Robbery occurred in the same location as the large building pictured behind me. The building is now a parking garage, but in the 1950s it was the Brink’s building (of the Brink’s company). It was robbed by an eleven-member team who stole approximately $2.775 million in cash and checks. The heist became famous for the large sum of money that was stolen, but also for the considerable lack of evidence the robbers left behind. While the robbers left few clues and the robbery was billed as the “crime of the century”, all eleven gang members were nevertheless caught by the police eventually.

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Stand on the Bullfinch Triangle and take your picture with the world’s widest cable-stayed bridge.

The blue-lit bridge shown in the distance is the Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge or the Zakim Bridge. It turns out that Bullfinch Triangle is a large area, loosely bordered by Causeway St., Canal St., Merrimack St., and a couple of others, so I did my best to get pictures of the bridge from within those confines.