On my last day in Massachusetts, I visited four locations in the hours before my flight home. All on foot (well, minus the Peter Pan bus from Springfield to Boston). All lugging my suitcase around. All on just over an hour of sleep (silly me thinking I could still hang with my friends until 5 in the morning and be able to function the next day!)
Needless to say I was dead tired! But how many times will I ever be in Boston again, and see so many actual sites of American history that I'd learned about in school? (Actually, I hope I have a lot more reasons to visit Boston- I felt very comfortable there and reminded me how much I missed the hustle and bustle of a large city, no offense to Pittsburgh.) Like I said, I visited four sites, but this blog will focus on the first site:
The Old South Meeting House.
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| Old South Meeting House |
I especially wanted to see the OSMH because of its connection to
Phyllis Wheatley. As the first major African-American author (before the Revolutionary War no less!) she holds a distinct place in American history. She met both Benjamin Franklin and George Washington (who had invited her to
his home). The OSMH was her church. Inside there is a statue of her that tells a little bit of her story. I mean, there are other figurines and people mentioned in the church (including some humorous depictions of "beef" between some of the church members right before the Revolutionary War was in full swing), but she was my personal highlight.
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| Phyllis Wheatley statue in the OSMH |
Three things I found interesting:
1. Whereas in the
African Meeting House I learned that the ceiling was curved to help project sound in a time before microphones, this place had a sounding board- sort of a heavy flat overhang right above the pulpit that was meant to serve the same purpose. Information lying about in the pews said that the sounding board hanging in place today was original. Meaning I am looking at the same thing Phyllis would have seen.
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| You can see the sounding board above the pulpit. |
2. Speaking of the pews, I've never seen a church set up the way this one was. The pews were more like boxes of benches, and not all of the seats faced the front. I vaguely remember reading something about the Puritan congregation that founded the church preferring the set up that way, and that people actually had to PAY to sit in certain booths. How crazy is that!
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Best view of the Pews I could get-
along with a creepy ghost looking plastic cut out of another historical figure... |
3. We weren't allowed upstairs into the balcony while I was there. I'm sure there could have been a ton of neat looking aerial shots of these strange pews if we had been allowed. I'm not too concerned though, the place looked like it could use some major sprucing up, so it may not have been safe to travel up there anyway.
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| Best view of the balcony I could get from the front of the first floor. |
Thank you again for reading my blog. Feel free to comment, leave suggestions, or ask questions. I still have more Massachusetts to account for (at LEAST three more entries) and by the time you finish reading them all, I will be wrapping up my next two states: Washington and Alaska!
See you on the next adventure!
