Boston
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Today we finished our cruise on Serenade of the Seas and after clearing a protracted delay with the ship's customs formalities - Welcome to USA and the city of Boston. |
Boston was founded in 1630 when about a thousand “Puritan”
settlers from Lincolnshire, England settled there to escape religious
persecution. The English government detested their religious practices. The
Puritans were a highly industrious people with high regard for education and
personal freedom.
Fishing and trading replaced agriculture since the soil was
rocky and acidic and unsuitable for large-scale farming and the rich off shore
fishing grounds help the settlement develop rapidly with fishing, timber and
boatbuilding activity. This expanded rapidly as wharves were built to
accommodate the growing number of ships that entered the harbour.
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| The large dome of the Christian Science Plaza. |
Today Boston is a large city with a population of 2.5
million people.
The exterior of the TV sitcom Cheers. The interior is in
Hollywood.
Much of the land around the original harbour has been
reclaimed.
Our hotel was near Boston Common, the oldest park in the US
and dates from 1634. It was originally a pasture for dairy cows and a training
field for the militia. Today this 50-acre site hosts celebrations, protests and
gatherings. It has welcomed Presidents Roosevelt & Eisenhower, Pope John
Paul II and Rev. Martin Luther King Jnr.
The Frog Pond looked relaxed.
There is a well maintained Public Park adjoining the Common
with beautiful gardens
Kings Chapel
We also walked to Chinatown, not as large or impressive as
Sydney.
Monday Sept 11
We visited to the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum. Re-enactment
of the Boston Tea Party takes place with audience participation.
Despite winning the French and Indian War, the British
Government and King George III’s ministers asked Parliament to levy taxes and
other duties on the colonies to help pay England’s’ national debt.
The Bostonians were outraged - they had no representation in
London: Taxation without representation. In the early 1770’s, a street riot
known as the Boston Massacre and the destruction of a cargo of East India tea
in the Boston Tea party began the desperate contest that would lead to the
establishment of American Independence.
Replicas of the 2 of the 3 ships that were in Boston
Harbour, Beaver and Eleanor where a total of 342 chests of
tea were thrown overboard on December 16, 1773 are docked at the Museum.
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| Beaver docked in Boston Harbour |
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| Storming the Beaver |
Tea chests in the hold.
And who threw one over…
We walked back to the hotel to pack to fly to our next city,
Toronto.
Being Sept 11, there was high security and street closures
in Boston today.
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