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Survey of
Historic Sites and Buildings

	SECOND BOSTON TOWN HOUSE (Old State House) (part of Boston National Historical Park) Massachusetts
Location: Washington and State Streets, Boston. Boston National Historical Park Boston Historical Society and Museum

Ownership and Administration (1961). City of Boston; custody vested in the Bostonian Society.

Significance. In the troubled years prior to the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the Second Boston Town House was the scene of proceedings of greater moment than those at any other building in the Thirteen Colonies. In February 1761 James Otis struck sparks here that helped to ignite the Revolutionary movement with his impassioned argument against the legality of writs of assistance. Of this occasion John Adams wrote: "Then and there the child Independence was born." The building figured prominently in the Stamp Act riots and in the affray later called the Boston Massacre, March 5, 1770.

It was erected in 1712-13 to replace an earlier structure of wood completed in 1658 and destroyed in the great fire of October 2-3, 1711. The Second Town House, like its predecessor, served a variety of purposes for the Province, for Suffolk County, and for the town of Boston. The second building was itself destroyed by fire on December 9, 1747, and was rebuilt the following year, utilizing the walls that had survived the fire.

Almost from the day of its completion, the Second Town House was the center of political activity and controversy in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Representatives of the Crown came into conflict here with the deputies of the people in the house of representatives, whose membership was popularly chosen in the town meeting. In the Second Town House Gov. William Shirley worked out his plan for the expedition to capture the French fortress of Louisburg on Cape Breton Island, one of the most notable military operations of the colonial period. Upon the return of the expedition in July 1745, its commanders were honored by a ceremony at the Second Town House. In 1766 the house of representatives voted to install a gallery for the accommodation of visitors, a noteworthy step forward in the democratic procedure of legislative assemblies opening their doors to the public. As the people of Boston grew increasingly restless, British General Gage was sworn into office as military governor in the council chamber of the town house. On June 7, 1774, Gage moved the final session of the general court to Salem, and the town house ceased to be the seat of popular representation until legislators of the new State government returned in November 1776. The town house then became the state house.

Second Boston Town House. (National Park Service)

With the completion of Charles Bulfinch's new statehouse, the members of the legislature on January 11, 1798, marched in a body from the old structure to the new. In 1803 the Commonwealth of Massachusetts sold its interest in the building to the town of Boston, and the counties of Suffolk and Norfolk followed suit. For more than a quarter of a century the building housed private offices and served as a Masonic meeting hail. In 1830 Boston appropriated space in the building for a city hall. While rehabilitating the building for this purpose the architects introduced new details and made alterations. The changes made at this time and perpetuated in work done later, when the building was rescued from oblivion and rededicated in 1882, largely obliterated the features that had given it identity with the period of the stormy movement toward revolution.

Present Appearance (1961). Ill-conceived attempts at restoration have marred seriously the interior of the Second Town House. The present plan of the all-important second floor has a circular foyer in the center, opening onto four small rooms and into corridors that lead to the representatives' hall at one end of the building and the council chamber at the other. Architects and historians have shown that in the building's most important period, 1766 to 1776, the representatives' chamber was in the center of the second floor. The restoration of the second floor would be very desirable, as well as that of the ground floor and basement, which contain a subway entrance and exit. The building is occupied by the Bostonian Society and is open to the public under the auspices of this group. [30]

In 1990 it was closed for extensive renovation and reopened in 1992 new exhibits, office space and climate control.