After the thunder storms last night this morning we woke up to fog that was more like very low cloud as when we went out for a walk after breakfast there were a number of buildings where we couldn’t see the top floors, but despite this there wasn’t any rain forecast so we set off over the bridge to Charlestown and the part of the freedom trail we didn’t do yesterday. We walked through Boston common again but took a slightly different route to the Charlestown bridge, we walked round a few of the roads in Charlestown and this is very much what I expected Boston to be like, quite large brownstones or wooden fronted houses, I have to say if it wasn’t for the fact that it is on the flight path it would definitely be somewhere to consider living. We finally reached Bunker Hill which is where the Colonists stood to face the British Army. On June 17th 1775 the battle of Bunker hill was one of the worst battles of the American Revolution with 1400 casualties. As a memorial they have built a 221 foot granite obelisk to commemorate the site of this battle. Just as we arrived the National Park service were starting a quick overview of the events leading up to this battle and what happened in the aftermath, the story was told by Veronica a Puerto Rican who used to work for DEA and now works for the park service, it was slightly surreal being told of the battle with colonial powers by someone with such a strong accent but she was very enthusiastic and although she slightly over stressed the difference between the well trained British soldiers and the amateur but determined farmers that made up the militia. The talk was only about 15 minutes so then it was time to decide if we were going to climb the 293 steps to the top of the obelisk which we decided we would do and actually wasn’t as bad as we thought it would be – all I can say is it is a good job we have been going to the gym! After this we decided to head to the harbour and walk around the wharf’s. This wasn’t quite the area I was expecting, I thought there would be a lot of old warehouse buildings that have been renovated to premium apartments but actually it was difficult to make out what the buildings had once been although they did look quite nice, all the same we walked around each of the wharfs And saw some really nice boats including the Mayan Queen which has been valued at over $140 million, not quite sure if it is worth it but it is certainly a big boat! From there we walked down to the Boston tea party museum which is another interesting experience. It involves an element of role playing and they forgave the fact that we were English. It was actually really good as the reasons behind the dumping of the tea were explained and also the cooperation of the captain and crew of the ships involved. To raise money to cover the French war the British implemented a tax on tea that needed to be collected once the cargo was off-loaded, interestingly this tax was very small and would have actually reduced the cost of tea to the people of Boston but the principle of taxation without representation was born over a number of issues in the colonies and this was the final straw. Ships have 20 days to unload their cargo once they have arrived in Boston and they had already been in port for 19 days, the ‘rebels’ had been trying to negotiate a deal with the British Governor but he wouldn’t agree meaning that to make a point something had to happen that evening. It was agreed with the Captains of the ships that they would not damage the other cargo and would only remove the tea that was destined for Boston, the captains agreed that although they wouldn’t help they would not get in the way of the rebels as long as there was no violence and nothing else was damaged, this was how on the night of December 16th one hundred or so men boarded the three ships in port and dumped the tea overboard. Interestingly it was a very low tide that night and the boats were actually aground when they were boarded, there was only two foot of water and because of this the tea basically formed a sludge around the boats which meant that they had to send people out in rowing boats to try and distribute it around the river, the captains left as soon as they could the following day and the British basically closed the port and put the town under military rule, it is said that these actions triggered the war of independence. By the time we had finished the tour it was almost 3pm so we walked back up to the centre of town and had a late lunch then decided to head back to the hotel to re-plan our last day to make sure we get to see everything we want to.
